


Getting Over Getting Older All the Time

by Distractivate



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday Parties, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Happy Endings For Everyone, It all works out eventually, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Playlist, Rampant repurposing of canon, Road Trips, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, They also date other people and it's mostly fine, accidental bed sharing, non-linear plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:41:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 68,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21764128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Distractivate/pseuds/Distractivate
Summary: “Well I’m going to run some errands,” David says, brushing a stray bit of fuzz off his navy blue sweater. “But we’re still on for birthday dinner?”“Yeah,” Patrick nods. He’s pretty sure David knows the annual birthday surprise party stopped being a surprise after year two or three. David doesn’t even inflict fictional catastrophes on the café as a decoy anymore. But Patrick plays along anyway. In some ways their whole partnership is built on playing along.OR David and Patrick have been business partners for a decade until, on Patrick's 40th Birthday, everything changes.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer & Stevie Budd, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Patrick Brewer/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 1333
Kudos: 942





	1. 2027

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WellSchitt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellSchitt/gifts).



> Thanks to WellSchitt for the prompt. Title of the work is a lyric from TIFF Song by Noah Reid.

“Lift with your knees, old man,” David says as Patrick sets the box of bath salts down with a wince near the shelves he’s about to restock. 

“Old man?” Patrick says, crossing his arms and leaning a hip against the center table. “I’m not technically forty until two-thirty. Don’t take the last two hours of my thirties away from me.”

“They were that good, huh? Gotta squeeze every last hour?” David says with a quirked smile, and as much as they both have stiffened with age, that smile is as nimble as ever. 

“They were,” Patrick says softly, dropping out of his default bicker-banter mode. Because in one way or another, no matter who else was holding him close, the last ten years have been wrapped up in David. 

“Well I’m going to run some errands,” David says, brushing a stray bit of fuzz off his navy blue sweater. “But we’re still on for birthday dinner?”

“Yeah,” Patrick nods. He’s pretty sure David knows the annual birthday surprise party stopped being a surprise after year two or three. David doesn’t even inflict fictional catastrophes on the café as a decoy anymore. But Patrick plays along anyway. In some ways their whole partnership is built on playing along. 

“Okay,” David says, and his nod is almost . . . shy. “See you then.”

But later, when Patrick walks into the café, he is surprised. The lights David uses every year are hung, and soft music plays, but the cafe is empty except for David sitting alone at their usual booth. 

Patrick’s step hitches, but David’s smile pulls him forward.

“Hi . . .” Patrick says, and he’s filled with questions and maybe, maybe hope. 

“Hi,” David says. 

“Um, David, I don’t think this is how surprise parties work,” Patrick says, sitting down. 

“Yeah, I know,” David says, and his face flushes into the silver streaking up his hair and the hope in Patrick’s chest blooms. “About that . . .”


	2. 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks [Pants](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smarty_Pants) and [Likerealpeopledo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likerealpeopledo/pseuds/Likerealpeopledo) for beta-ing the remainder of this work. You're the best.
> 
> It's been a bit since I posted the drabble that got us into this mess. The heaviest angst is up front here in this chapter but as Chapter 1 implies, this all works out. Eventually.

In hindsight, calling the electrician was a bad idea. It didn’t seem like it at first, when he was standing on the stool, his shirt riding up, hands gripping his tools as he wired the lights. At first it seemed like a great idea. It wasn’t until the electrician—Oscar—asked David out, until Patrick stupidly encouraged it by inviting him to their soft launch/grand opening, until Oscar took David out for a romantic birthday dinner for their fourth date, that it became clear what a colossal mistake it had been. If Patrick had it to do over, he would have looked up how to do the electrical work himself on YouTube. Might have burned down the store but . . . in its way, this is its own kind of emergency.

Oscar touches David so easily. It’s the first thing Patrick notices about him once he starts dropping by the store between jobs. He kisses David hello and goodbye with his whole slightly-taller-than-David body. His big works-with-his-hands palm cradles the plane of David’s cheek as his other arm folds David against him. Patrick never watches past that. And that’s just hello and goodbye. Patrick can only imagine what’s happening when he comes back after lunch and they pop out of the back room straightening their clothes. Or before Oscar drops David off at the store in the morning.

Patrick only calls him The Grouch privately. He knows it’s petty and mean and he’s working on it. Or he would be if The Grouch would stop coming by with David’s coffee order like a goddamn hero when he keeps forgetting the cocoa powder. It’s not that hard. It’s the most complicated coffee order ever and once you’ve heard it the first time, Patrick doesn’t understand how you can possibly mess it up. Patrick can't decide if it would be worse to write David's order down for Oscar next time, or buy David a small canister of cocoa powder to fix the omission himself. He decides on the latter and he thinks if Oscar saw the delighted face David made when Patrick presented it to him, he would never forget that critical ingredient again.

The worst part is, Oscar is not grouchy. Not at all. He’s just sort of . . . serious. He takes a lot of things seriously. And he takes David seriously. That’s the second thing Patrick notices about him. A thing he keeps noticing. Like the time Oscar bought tickets to the Julia Stiles-A-Thon and David took them carefully like they might vanish upon contact and Oscar along with them. Then Oscar put his hands on David’s shoulders in that effortlessly affectionate way he has and said, “I can’t wait to see her the way you do.” It was a good line, even more so because he was so damn serious.

The third thing Patrick notices about Oscar is that David starts to radiate, even when he's not around. They haven’t talked a lot about their pasts, but Patrick thinks maybe David hasn’t had this before, someone who wants to learn how to see things the way he does. David and Oscar are building something serious. Something meaningful.

Not that Patrick isn’t building something meaningful with David. They’re not . . . boyfriends. Not like Patrick wanted to be. But they’re partners. And for all that Oscar sometimes crashes into that with his broad shoulders and rakish smile and easygoing charm, most days Patrick thinks he gets the best of David in their partnership. He gets the David who flips out when he moves the lip balms and who hovers until he’s confident Patrick knows what he means by arranging the products “label out.” He gets the David who leans close over the budget spreadsheet with Patrick on a Friday night and asks good questions and teases him about pivot tables while he eats more takeout than any human being should be able to fit in their stomach at once. And radiates. Not exactly the same as with Oscar—and it’s possible it’s all in his head—but with Patrick, David seems to radiate from deeper within. Like someone who’s always used confidence like a shield and is learning it can be a source of power, not just protection. 

David brings out a more confident side of Patrick too. Running the store is the most challenging job he’s ever had. He stresses over consignment agreements and profit margins and daily foot traffic and competing businesses and he’s never been happier to be stressed about something that matters to him as much as this does. He’s never felt more satisfied to be good at something the way he’s good at this. This partnership may have started because there was something about David he was drawn to. It’s so much more than that now. The thrill when he flips the sign to _Open_ each morning is much more about Patrick than it is about David. He’s spent his entire professional life trying to map out a trajectory toward the perfect job and now that he's veered off course, he's found the right fit through just about the only spontaneous decision he’s ever made. 

Patrick hasn’t had a lot of time to make friends yet, but he supposes he and David are friends too, as well as partners. So, standing on opposite sides of the counter near the cash, David is the first person Patrick tells he’s gay. It comes out in one sharp breath and is met by wide eyes and a hard swallow and then with what might be the softest smile he’s ever seen, curving across David’s face. And maybe it’s not the whole plan he worked up when he offered to partner with David—it’s not dates and gestures and falling in love over body milk. But it’s . . . good. It’s good to have someone to talk to about it. 

After he tells him, David asks a few gentle questions and Patrick gives him the two-minute summary, minus the David of it all. 

“So have you done anything about it?” David asks, like he’s taking a tentative step onto a glass floor, not quite trusting it will hold.

“No. I mean is it the same? You just . . . ask someone out?”

David’s smile turns impossibly softer. “It can be.”

“But where do you find them around here?”

“Ah, well, current situation aside? Probably best not to come to me for relationship advice.” David gets the smile he always gets when Oscar comes to mind. Private and quiet and careful still, but getting bolder by the day.

“Maybe Stevie will know,” Patrick muses. He likes Stevie, and he likes that he can count on her to help him get the result he wants from David even when she’s not there.

“God no,” David says too quickly, and Patrick tries not to laugh. “Here, hand me your phone.”

What follows is a lot of muttering as David downloads an app called Bumpkin and begins setting up a profile.

“Okay interests. Baseball, reading boring nonfiction tomes, filling out business paperwork. Am I leaving anything out?”

“I play guitar. And uh, hiking, I guess.”

“Oh god. Well at least we know those shoes get used for their intended purpose when they're not gracing our store,” David mutters as he grudgingly adds guitar and hiking to the list. He misses Patrick’s loud answering smile, which is probably for the best.

David goes on like that, typing furiously with his thumbs and only asking Patrick when he needs clarification on something. Then David takes out his own phone and fusses some more until finally Patrick has to ask what he’s doing.

“Dropping a profile pic from my phone. I have one from the store opening and you look—um. It’s a really good picture of you.” David holds his gaze for a minute before looking down and tapping with his thumbs some more, eyebrows in a stiff line.

Patrick is still trying to think of what to say to that when David hands him the phone. Patrick remembers David showing him the pictures he took of the opening, but he’s never seen this one. The person staring back at him is . . . radiant. David has also composed a short summary from the fields he filled out. It’s a little funny and a little smart and a lot Patrick. Or more accurately, like the person Patrick wants to be. Patrick feels the burn of that in his throat and around the edges of his eyes and deep in his diaphragm as he tries to hold it in. 

“Thanks, man,” he says, sliding the phone into his pocket. 

David makes a humming noise accompanied by a little eye roll that Patrick has learned means something close to, “You’re welcome.” David’s phone vibrates on the counter. “I have to go.” 

“Yeah. Can we talk more about this tomorrow? I mean if I have—”

“We can talk whenever you’d like,” David says. “Just preferably not before ten a.m., ‘cause I’m not really a morning person.”

“Mmm,” Patrick hums through a smile. “Goodnight, David.”

“Goodnight, Patrick.”

Over the next several days, Patrick checks the app occasionally. There aren’t a lot of choices and half the choices are Ray. But a week later, the app sends him a notification: _You've bumped!_

He has a match.


	3. 2018

Patrick looks at the message that pops up, warning him that he’s about to delete Bumpkin and all of its data along with it. _Good riddance,_ he thinks. But he taps _Cancel_ and opens the app to take a screenshot of the profile David made for him. It’s probably the best memory he has of the whole dating app experience. 

The first few dates were fine. Not mind-blowing, not terrible. Fine. The third guy kissed him, and that was fine too. His name was Samuel. He was nice and his voice was soft and his lips were softer. He talked too much about his job but it was an interesting job so . . . it was fine. It was a good kiss, as first kisses go. But after the third or fourth kiss, Patrick asked if they could slow down, and Samuel seemed to understand. He never called Patrick again. 

Patrick didn’t kiss Antonio, who was match number seven or eight. He can’t remember now. Antonio seemed perfect on paper. He owned a store in the old Blouse Barn location in Elmdale and had a hound named King after the Neil Young song and he made Patrick weak in the knees with his flirty back-and-forth in their chats before they decided to meet in person. He had dark hair rising high off his forehead and strong eyebrows and wore skirted pants in his profile photo and Patrick was self-aware enough to understand why he was eager to meet up with him. Patrick wore his navy jacket and sat in the booth at Café Tropical with sweating palms, hoping this one would take him somewhere other than right back to Bumpkin. It took ten minutes for Patrick’s hopes to be dashed. Patrick knew he wasn’t going to find another David. Definitely not around here, and probably not anywhere. But he really thought it would be easier to get close.

One of his dates didn’t show up, so instead he ended up talking to a girl at the bar whose date was also missing in action. Their conversation was interrupted by a tall guy in a deep v-neck who squeezed into the spot between them. He told them his name was Jake and chatted for what he must have determined was the minimal amount of time to earn them invites back to his place. Patrick opted out but offered to buy them both a drink. Jake put his number in Patrick’s phone in return—Patrick still isn’t sure how the balance sheet works on that—and Patrick spent the rest of the night deep-cleaning the back room at the store. Patrick looked at the number again before bed and added “open-minded guy” in the notes, because that’s the only thing Jake offered about himself during the entire conversation. Given Jake's whole . . . aura, it probably fits.

There were a number of other matches after that, including one he hasn’t responded to, but Patrick deletes the app anyway. With every new first date, it feels like the start of a jigsaw puzzle, where he’s missing two pieces of the border and he has to hope they’re hiding in the pile of unplaced pieces. He’s getting tired of putting the puzzle together to find out those pieces are missing entirely.

“What are you doing?” David asks with a friendly squeeze of his shoulder as he comes out of the back. It’s unlike Patrick to be on his phone so much during work hours, but it’s been a slow day.

“Just contemplating my life choices.”

“Well it looks like fun.” David’s voice is light but his face is frowning under his dark brow. 

The bell on the door jangles, saving Patrick the trouble of deflecting David’s line of questioning. Patrick greets the customer and follows him to the corner of the store. He would give advice on fungal cream if it meant escaping a conversation with David about the shortcomings in his own personal life. David has been supportive and encouraging and Patrick feels embarrassed that his answer to David’s excited requests for updates is always some version of, “It didn’t work out.” He’s kind of shocked that David still wants to hear about all these false starts.

Patrick has learned enough about how this works to pick out the moment the customer—his name is Ken—starts flirting with him. He is smaller than Patrick with bright eyes and a brighter smile and asks way too many questions about hand cream for someone who uses it religiously, if the softness of his handshake is any indication. Ken goes over to where David is still standing at the counter and asks for a pen and paper. When he returns to give Patrick his number, David makes a pretty obvious study of Ken’s ass and a very obvious thumbs up behind his back. Patrick shoots David a look of death, but he must be firing blanks because David just disappears into the back room looking very pleased with himself. 

Without David watching though, it’s easy to ask Ken out. A fluttery smile takes over Ken’s face and Patrick thinks this might be good as they settle on the details. Ken buys two jars of hand cream and a bag of ginger turmeric tea and leaves with a whisper-quiet, “See you tomorrow.”

The next morning before work, Patrick settles into a comfortable patio chair next to Ken under the canopy outside Elmdale Roasters. They talk and Patrick finds that he is pretty taken with Ken’s feathery laugh and his smile like the sun. Ken is taking night classes to earn his masters which means they don’t have a lot of overlapping free time. He tells Patrick his emphasis is in statistics and probabilities, and Patrick suspects that based on the way he says it, he is the first person Ken has ever dated who thinks that’s interesting. Patrick also learns that Ken is funny and forward and loves baseball as much as Patrick and loves early mornings as much as Patrick. He has nice eyes set behind dark glasses and Patrick thinks a lot, sitting there arguing about the merits of the _Moneyball_ approach to baseball, about Ken’s thick, darkly shiny hair and about how it would feel to put his hands in it. 

Their first few dates are low pressure. Coffee before work to start, ice cream on a hot Saturday afternoon a week later, a walk through Ken’s campus in Elm Falls on Tuesday when the store is closed. The dates feel easy, and Patrick finds he can stop worrying all the time about what he should or could be doing differently to make this go however it’s supposed to go. 

When they finally go out for a proper dinner date, he’s spent enough time with Ken that it feels natural to reach over and take his hand as they walk back to the car. This could be good, Patrick thinks as they walk. It’s a thought he has often enough that it starts to get louder than the roar of _what if_ that he’s grown used to at the store, around town, whenever something reminds him of David. 

They get a little carried away in Ken’s car until kissing Ken's mouth isn't enough and Patrick needs to taste more of him. It’s sloppy and uncoordinated, hands colliding in search of hems and collars, and Patrick thinks _this_. This feels much closer to how he’s always hoped it would feel. They plan their next date before the first one is even close to over, Ken murmuring his schedule into Patrick’s neck between kisses and Patrick agreeing to his first available day because right now he thinks he would agree to anything. 

A week later, Patrick invites Ken up to his apartment after dinner. He just moved out of Ray’s and he feels a whole new kind of energy inviting someone back to his space like this. When Patrick first told Ken he needed to take things slow, Ken beamed and said “I’m good with that.” Now pressed against the door in Patrick’s apartment, he proves it. Ken unbuttons two of Patrick’s buttons with impossible slowness and pushes the fabric aside with a slow, knowing smile and presses long, slow kisses against his clavicle like they can just stay here kissing for the rest of their lives if they want. Patrick tries to keep his wits until he can’t, until the undoing overtakes him. Ken asks gently before they kiss their way to the bed, before each piece of clothing comes off, before he works his mouth slowly, slowly down. His pace is torturous and his mouth closes around Patrick with a slow, wet heat and Patrick feels that heat travel outward ever so slowly until he’s consumed by it.

Later, as they clean up, Patrick is hopeful he’s finally turned a corner. This isn’t a what-if. It’s real. It was more fun and easier than it’s ever been with anyone else, and good enough that he can already tell how much better they can get. Ken lingers a little bit after he gets dressed again, kissing Patrick’s still-warm skin and talking about their plans for the week. And Patrick thinks for the thousandth time that this could be really good.

At first, the pieces fall into place easily with Ken. On dates he listens and laughs and makes Patrick feel very gay. Patrick notices that Ken doesn’t usually want to hear stories about the store, which Patrick knows are too often stories about David. He tries hard to separate that part of himself, and worries sometimes that it’s not a good sign, that he has to separate his life into parts that Ken is comfortable with. In bed, Ken shifts easily between sweet and spectacularly filthy conversation. Patrick likes it a lot, but he doesn’t always feel like he’s in sync with it. Ken also makes it fun to make up for lost time when it comes to trying new things, but sometimes it feels like Ken is more interested in showing Patrick what he likes instead of exploring what Patrick might enjoy. And Patrick wonders if it matters that those two dynamics—what he likes and what Ken likes—feel distinct. But it’s only been a month since they started sleeping together. It’s early yet. They have time to figure it out. He wants to figure it out. 

They’ve been dating for almost two months when Patrick notices that the conversation isn’t flowing as easily as it used to. Ken seems restless when they talk and restless when they fuck, too. Patrick asks if everything’s okay and Ken says he’s just distracted with grad school and finals and a research trip he’s organizing. Patrick feels everything slipping through his fingers and so he grasps for the types of things that used to help him hold onto Rachel. He plans a romantic dinner and gets food from one of Ken’s favorite restaurants. Ken eats it quickly and says he has to go; he has an early morning. After he leaves, Patrick cleans up the dishes and blows out the candles and takes a shower and texts David about a vendor contract. It’s a little after ten, and David doesn’t answer. Patrick knows by now that means Oscar will drop him off at the store in the morning.

Patrick never really finds out what exactly went sour, which is worse, maybe, than a big blowup. Ken is supposed to come out with a small group for Patrick’s birthday, but he comes by the store the day before and says he can’t make it. He has a major deadline for his dissertation or something. Patrick finds the limit of his understanding and ends up arguing with Ken in the back room. It’s the same kind of argument he used to have with Rachel, where he isn't sure what's wrong or how to fix it and they circle and circle until Patrick is suggesting they take a break. 

“Why?” is all Ken asks, and Patrick isn’t sure which part of the whole thing he’s referring to. 

“You’re busy with school. When your semester is over we can try again if we still want that,” Patrick says.

“I don’t think it’s me you want,” Ken says carefully. “I don’t think that’s going to change when my semester is over.” 

Patrick tries to scan back through their conversations, through the days and nights they spent together, but he can’t think of what he might have said or done to make Ken think Patrick wanted someone else. Except he knows, deep down, who Ken is talking about. So maybe Ken isn’t totally wrong.

“I do want you,” Patrick tries. “I will.”

But Ken just shakes his head and leaves.

Patrick can hear David out in the store, but he doesn’t come in the back room, even to restock product. He gives Patrick space as long as possible until he has to put the bank deposit in the safe and file the receipts for the day. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Patrick says.

“Okay,” David says. He looks at Patrick with such tenderness that Patrick feels like he might start crying. He sort of does start crying, his lashes and cheeks getting wetter without his permission. When David is done with the business he sits down across from Patrick at the little table they use for lunch breaks and inventory nights and drinking wine after quarterly tax filings.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” David says before Patrick can protest. “But let’s say someone hypothetically planned a surprise birthday party, which is now canceled, and unwisely invited your parents . . . I need to know if I should tell them not to come at all. Or if you might like to see them, even without the party.”

“You invited my parents? Here?”

“I realize it was a stupid thing to do? But in my defense—”

“David, they don’t know I’m gay.”

David’s jaw falls at that and Patrick can practically see the spiral forming in David's brain.

“Hey,” Patrick says. He goes to reach for David’s hand on the table but thinks better of it, tapping the veneered surface next to it to get his attention. “Don’t cancel the party. Tell them to come.”

Patrick stands up. He has a million things to figure out, which is sort of helpful actually. 

“I didn’t say _I_ planned the party,” David says. 

“Okay, David,” Patrick says, and he finds he’s smiling on his way to the door. Just ten minutes ago he wasn’t sure when he would smile again. 

“Thank you,” Patrick says, turning in the doorway. “For planning a party for me.” David nods, eyelashes fluttering in that way he has that will never not make Patrick’s stomach flutter too. “And Ken is not invited. In case that wasn’t—”

“Mmm, that was clear,” David says with a small cringe. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Patrick says honestly. “But thanks to you I can spend all night practicing my look of genuine surprise and postpone the drowning of my sorrows in whiskey, so. That’s something.”

“If you change your mind on the party, I can—” 

“What party?” Patrick asks with a smirk. “I’m just looking forward to a small birthday dinner with friends.”

“Okay,” David says in that low voice he has that’s almost a whisper. Patrick makes it to the end of the block before he starts crying for real.

Patrick doesn’t sleep well that night. He spends most of it trying to think about what he’s going to say to his parents, wondering what he would have done if he’d showed up with Ken as planned to find them standing there. He’d hoped that when he told them he was gay, he’d have someone to introduce them to. Someone he could point to as evidence for how happy he is. But he _is_ happy. Even without all the pieces in place, he's happier than he was before he knew how to name this thing about himself. And he hopes they can see that anyway.

It goes about as well as he hoped it would. David makes the café beautiful with lights and music and food that might have actually been prepared instead of thawed. Patrick’s parents tell him the only thing they care about is that he’s happy. And Patrick knows he looks tired—he feels tired—but it’s easier than he thought it would be to put the temporary pain aside and point to all the happiness in his life that is gathered in the room around him. 

His parents and most of the guests leave and Patrick feels the events of the last two days settle again, heavy on his shoulders. Stevie and David stay with him while he finishes off the leftover wine and wallows, mostly to himself. They take him back to his place and Stevie pours him a large glass of water with a stern, “Drink this,” and they all sit, David and Stevie bookending him on the couch. He can hear his slurred voice betraying him, but he can’t stop it.

“I jussss wanna be done, David,” Patrick moans into his shoulder. 

“I know, honey,” he whispers.

“I like men. Men are so, so good. But I don’t think men like me.”

“They definitely do. I think you’ve been on more dates than I have this year, and I have a boyfriend.”

“Your boyferrrnd is pretty,” Patrick says. “My boyfriend was pretty. He was so pretty. Not like you’re pretty, but really close!”

“Yes, well. On that I have to agree.” Stevie gives Patrick a pat on the back as she says it.

“Excuse me, do you _have_ to agree?” David asks. Patrick is too slumped against David’s shoulder to see his face, but he can imagine the glare that goes with David’s tone; it makes him giggle. He hears Stevie say something about waiting in the car and then a, “Don’t be stupid.” Patrick sits up to look to David for clarification about which one of them she’s talking to, but David is growling after her which gets Patrick giggling again.

“You’re like a big cat,” Patrick says. “Too bad I’m allergic to cats. Because you’re like a grateful—no. A graceful cat but with very, very, verrrry sharp teeth. Like a puma. No! A panther. A really soft, cuddly, pickle-pricky-prickly panther.”

“I don’t think that’s a thing,” David says. His sweater has panthers climbing up the shoulders and that fits. Maybe that’s where Patrick got the idea. “But it sounds like it’s time for you to get in bed.”

“That’s a good idea. You. Me. Bed. Good. Idea.” Patrick pokes at David’s chest with each word. David catches his finger and uses it to tug him across the small studio apartment toward the bed. 

“Oh, no, just you,” David says, and Patrick’s eyes are squinting and blurry so he can’t really tell if David is smiling or cringing. Probably best not to know.

“Oscar would be mad,” Patrick realizes glumly. And then his next thought makes it all better. “Or Oscar can come, too!”

“Well that is a fascinating offer,” David says. “But I think for right now let’s get you into your little pajamas and give you some painkillers and see how you feel about that in the morning.”

“’Kay.” David helps Patrick balance while he trades his jeans for pajama bottoms. His shirt was kind enough to unbutton itself, so he slides it off and tosses it over his jeans on the chair by his bed. David helps lower him onto the mattress and once his head sinks into the pillow he can’t keep his eyes open at all. He fights against sleep as someone lifts his legs onto the bed. The blankets settle down around him, someone tucking them in tight to keep him on his side. 

“He didn’t deserve you. But I promise there’s someone out there who does,” a voice says, so close to his ear he thinks the voice might be in his head. “Goodnight, Patrick.”

“G'night, Patrick,” Patrick mumbles before giving in to the black.

* * *

Over the next couple of months, Patrick gives up on dating. He’s never really been single for very long, and it’s kind of restful, actually, once he adjusts to it. He gets involved in the baseball team and the curling club and starts hiking more and finds he enjoys paddling along the creek using a kayak that Dick Sinson left in the lot behind the store and never came back for. 

It’s a quiet, rainy Tuesday when everything changes. Patrick doesn’t see it coming. Literally. He backs into someone looking for new trail shoes at Backcountry Equipment Co-op in Elm Valley. He turns to apologize and he hopes he did, because all he can really register is that he hasn’t had such a visceral first impression of someone since David Rose walked into his office. The guy in front of him is tall and wiry and he catches Patrick’s elbow with long, slender fingers. And smiles the most unfiltered smile Patrick has ever seen.

“Right, sorry. Just like to catch my customers off guard.” And speaks with an adorable British accent right out of David’s rom-coms.

The guy is wearing one of the vests that marks him as an employee. His nametag says, _Tim._ He realizes he’s still holding Patrick’s elbow at the same time Patrick does and pulls his hand away to scratch through his tangle of strawberry blond hair.

“Well your timing is good. I was about to look for someone who could find me these in a size ten.”

“Good to know my sneak-attack worked, then,” he says, taking the shoe. He disappears to the back and returns with a box of tens and a half-size up, since he says they run small. Then he gives Patrick shit about his socks.

Patrick pretends to be offended. “Is this also part of your brilliant sales approach?” 

“No. Not generally. But if you buy the shoes, I’ll throw in a pair of proper hiking socks for free.”

“Wow,” Patrick says, leaning forward elbows-to-knees, a hand covering his smile. “You must really hate my socks.”

“It’s selfish, really. I’ll just sleep better knowing you’re not out on the trails in something that comes in a value pack,” Tim pushes. 

“Yes. Wouldn’t want you to lose sleep over me,” Patrick says. Tim leans back on his heels with a wide grin and pushes a sweep of hair away from his startlingly-light hazel eyes. Jesus. 

Tim glances up occasionally through long, thick lashes as he checks the fit, a finger swiping around Patrick's ankle between the sock and the shoe. He looks like he kayaks or rock climbs or something physical and outdoorsy, muscular but not built. And under his work vest he’s wearing a T-shirt with a mountain and a rainbow over it. Patrick suddenly can’t fathom the idea of leaving the store without a plan to see him again.

“Since you know everything there is to know about proper hiking attire, are there any good trails around here?” Patrick tries. 

“What are you doing this weekend? I’m trying out a new route through Sleeping Wolf Canyon. I heard the views are brilliant.” 

Which is how Patrick ends up spending every Sunday morning for the next month hiking with Tim. They don’t always talk a lot on the hikes; some of the routes are pretty strenuous. But over the course of breaks and pauses at scenic lookouts, Tim tells Patrick he identifies as very bi, and tells him about the queer-focused outdoor adventure club he’s trying to get started.

“You can be the vice president,” Tim says as he hops over a large boulder in the path around Blue Lake.

“And what are the duties of the vice president?” Patrick asks. 

“Mostly just to tell the president they’re doing a good job.”

“And what if I want to be the president so you can tell me I’m doing a good job?”

“You can run when the position opens up next year,” Tim says with a grin. “And I’ll tell you you’re doing a good job whenever you want.” He bites his lip as he adjusts the folded bandana he always wears like a headband when they hike. It’s a ridiculous look, for all he’s still ridiculously hot, and it helps Patrick feel comfortable around him in a way he hasn’t really felt around anyone new since maybe ever. 

Not that Patrick is planning to ask Tim out. He’s not. He’s enjoying being single and not worrying about what every hitched breath and subtle touch might mean. But the group sounds like a fun thing to do. And Tim seems like a fun person to do it with. And he likes that Tim is already talking about this being a thing they can do together for a year or more. 

They organize a camping trip along Big Spoon Lake as the first outing of the Pride Outside Adventure Club. Everyone gathers around the fire near the center of the circled-up tents. Patrick plays his guitar after dinner and Ronnie calls out requests from songs he’s played at the store’s open mic nights. 

Tim sits close, watching Patrick with the guitar, and Patrick feels heat from more than just the fire. Once twilight deepens into night and the fire turns into a low glow among the charred logs, most of the group splits off into smaller clusters or retires to their tents, and Patrick sets his guitar aside. 

“So would it be an abuse of my position as president of this club if I tell you I picked a camping trip as our first outing because I wanted an excuse to spend the night with you?” Tim asks. 

It catches Patrick off guard, a roasted marshmallow half in his mouth. Tim laughs and pushes it the rest of the way in with the tip of his finger. Patrick does his best to chew the sticky, sugary mass and swallow before the silence becomes unbearable. 

“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who has to come up with an elaborate excuse.” Patrick knows he’s spent most of the day convincing himself nothing is happening with Tim. But Tim’s eyes glow yellow in the firelight and something is definitely fucking happening. 

“I’m not,” Tim admits. “But it seems like you might. Need an excuse, that is.” 

“Well.” Patrick’s voice comes from low in his throat. “I could put you in touch with my last boyfriend.”

“Uh oh,” Tim says with a laugh. “What did you do?”

“I think he thinks I have a thing for my business partner.”

“The guy I met the other day?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a good-looking bloke. I think I have a little thing for him and I only spent the ten minutes there.”

Patrick laughs into the night and Ronnie catches his eye across the circle with a raised brow and her signature all-knowing smile. She elbows Karen and they retreat to their tent, leaving Patrick and Tim alone by the diminishing campfire.

“Yes well. David has been dating the same guy for almost two years now so . . . I don’t think he’s pining away for me over the natural deodorant, you know?”

Tim digs into the dirt with a stick. “Was he right? Your last boyfriend?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick says. “Maybe at the time. I don’t really think about David as a real possibility anymore, I guess.”

“Hmm. Well I like you a lot, Patrick,” he says, the vast sea of stars across the sky reflecting in the lake and casting a soft glow across his face when he turns. “And it sounds like you’ve been through a bit of a mess, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Patrick breathes it out so softly he thinks it might be lost in the darkness. But Tim catches it.

“So I think maybe what I should do is give you some time to think about it, now that I’ve put this on you. It doesn’t have to be serious if you aren’t looking for serious, but I can't be a substitute for someone else, yeah?”

Patrick nods and tries to quiet the whir of the gears in his brain. Tim used to be a book editor in London, and Patrick has learned that he’s good at getting straight to the point. It's one of the things that's a little intimidating and a lot intriguing about him.

“I have a lot of good fun whenever I’m with you, Patrick. No matter what you decide, I plan to keep having a lot of good fun with you,” Tim says. He squeezes Patrick’s hand where it’s resting on his knee, his fingers callused and strong. It would almost be friendly except Tim’s face is an open book. All the subtext behind his pared-down words is clear in the long line of his smile and the steady drive of his eyes: They could have a lot of fun together, if Patrick wants. Every way he wants. “Right. Goodnight, then.”

“’Night.” Patrick watches as Tim gets up and zips himself in his tent on the far side of the circle near the row of kayaks and canoes pulled up on the rocky beach.

The last embers of the fire spark and pop, reminding Patrick of David’s sweater with the flames. He was wearing it when Patrick said goodbye that morning. Oscar invited him go to an improv show tonight, and if Patrick needed any further indication that David is head over fucking heels for Oscar, it's that he agreed to go. The ache when he thinks of what might have been with David is considerably less than it used to be, muted as it is by time and more recent heartbreaks. But thinking of David reminds Patrick how quickly a charged flirtation can turn into a comfortable friendship. He _knows_ the fire can burn out as quickly as it starts. And even though lately he feels like the inside of the roasted marshmallows they ate tonight, he’d be stupid to let that happen again.

He dumps dirt to smother the remaining embers and packs up their food in the bear locker a few steps down the path past a cluster of cedars. He can see Tim as he walks back, lying sideways in his tent reading a book with the end of his long flashlight in his mouth. Which is quite the silhouette.

“Can I come in?” Patrick asks, unzipping the tent flap a few inches.

“Yeah, sure.” Tim clicks off the flashlight, sets the book aside, and sits up to make room for him in the small rectangle of space.

Patrick tries to tuck all of his limbs into the tent as gracefully as possible, which is not that gracefully given it’s barely tall enough to sit up straight inside. 

“Think you’ll make it?” Tim asks, not bothering to suppress a smile at Patrick’s finagling. Patrick loves that, that he never bothers to suppress his smile.

Patrick nods and gets right to it. “I like you a lot, too. I think about you a lot. All the time. I don’t need any more time to think about it.”

Patrick's eyes have adjusted to the night enough to catch it as Tim’s smile cracks open. Patrick likes his mouth. He’s thought a lot about what it would be like to kiss it. What it would look like around his cock. What it would feel like against his skin. “Well. And what should we do about that, do you think?” Tim asks.

Patrick realizes with a start that he doesn’t have to stop himself from thinking like that anymore. It’s the first time in over a year that Patrick has felt this way about kissing someone. Like the only possible outcomes are good, no matter how the kiss itself goes. No matter how far they take it afterwards.

“I think you should probably kiss me,” Patrick says. “Since it was your idea.”

Tim looks like he’s deciding on a comeback, and Patrick can’t not be kissing him, now that it feels imminent. So he does. Patrick thinks he’s prepared. He’s not. Tim kisses like he smiles, uninhibited and free. He kisses like he climbs up a mountain, persistent and steady. He kisses like he floats in the middle of a quiet lake, unhurried and with a deep hum of satisfaction that could just as easily be coming from Patrick. One kiss becomes two and three and Patrick thinks he’ll keep track, because he wants to know some day how many times he’s been kissed like this. But even one kiss with Tim is more than the thousand he’s had before put together. So he loses count pretty quickly after that. When they both pause, Tim nuzzles into Patrick’s neck to catch his breath. His inhales and exhales are shaky with a laugh, and Patrick feels it too, the joy of letting all this uncomplicated desire overtake them.

“Thank you,” Patrick says, resting his hands on the long stretch of Tim’s legs that are crossed between them.

Even as Tim leans back, Patrick feels the laugh more than he hears it, the shake of it coming through Tim’s hands ghosting up and down his upper arms. 

“Thank you? Whatever for?” Tim asks, his accent highlighting his surprise. Tim’s hands trail back down his arms, the pads of his fingers rough across the backs of Patrick’s hands. Patrick catches them. Tim's hands are beautifully built, long bones meeting in the round knobs of his knuckles. Patrick has wanted to learn the shape of them with his fingers for longer than he should admit.

“Being okay with the mess.”

“Takes one to know one. Isn’t that the saying?”

“You don’t seem like a mess,” Patrick says.

“I can give you my whole sordid history if you want,” Tim says, sliding Patrick’s hood up over his head like he did on their second hike, the first time Patrick knew without a doubt he was flirting. Tim pulls the drawstrings back and forth, working Patrick closer until he can reach him with his mouth again. 

“Maybe we should box up sordid histories for tonight, hm?” Patrick says, and kisses Tim again.

“Oh no, now I really need to hear yours,” Tim says with a laugh, pushing Patrick’s hood back on his shoulders like it’s time to be serious. “Let’s do one thing each and then we can box up the rest for another night.” Then Tim grins again and reaches for his flashlight, turning it on under his chin so it casts spooky shadows up his face. "Unless you're scared."

Patrick laughs even though he _is_ scared. Terrified even. But Tim just isn't, not to tell Patrick about his past, not to hear whatever might be lurking in Patrick's. So Patrick reaches for the flashlight and turns it off and they talk in the quiet starlight.

One story each takes quite a while between the side commentary and follow-up questions. Tim tells him his brother died and that he took it really hard. After the family obligations were finished in London, he quit his job at the publishing house and decided to spend the summer in Banff. He didn’t make a plan for after his trip but he didn’t want to go home, so he hiked and paddled and hitchhiked his way to rural Ontario until he ran out of money. He found the job at the co-op and has been working there for the last year. He has the money to go home now but he’s thinking about staying if he can manage it. He likes it here, he says without a lot more explanation.

And then Patrick is telling him about his own story of wandering away from home, away from his past, away from Rachel and everything he thought he needed to be for her. Patrick hasn’t told anyone else in Schitt’s Creek about her. Not David. Not Stevie. Not Ray. Not even when she dropped in on him a few months after he moved. But Tim’s eyes are dark in the night, pools of safety where he can drop his secrets and let them sink into the bottomless depths. 

By the time Patrick finishes his story they’re attempting to lie down next to each other in Tim’s small backpacking tent. 

“I would have bought a bigger tent, but I didn’t want to jinx it,” Tim says as Patrick adjusts his position for the umpteenth time.

“Yeah. I should probably head back to my tent anyway,” Patrick says.

Tim has the audacity to pout, which is unfair and unfairly cute.

“You know,” Patrick continues, pressing a feather-light kiss to his cheekbone. “My tent is bigger if you’d like to join me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to olive2read for introducing me to Tim Stoker. Tim is inspired by the character with the same name in The Magnus Archives podcast. This is not a crossover; there is absolutely no plot carryover or introduction of the themes from the podcast and I took quite a few liberties with his characterization. Fans of the podcast might find a few easter eggs though. And hey, if you’re interested in Britain-based fiction podcasts about creepy happenings with great queer representation, give The Magnus Archives a listen. I'm enjoying it a lot!


	4. 2019

Patrick hums as he plucks at the guitar in the back room during their usual slow time before the lunch rush. 

“What’s the song tonight?” David asks when he comes back to eat his mid-morning yogurt. He eyes the guitar with a wary resignation; he’s long since given up suggesting they just don’t do the quarterly Open Mic Night.

“I’m not sure. I was thinking about maybe, uh. Maybe doing one for Tim.”

“Oh,” David says. He dunks his spoon into the yogurt and sets it down, nodding thoughtfully. “So that’s going well, then.”

Patrick feels the flush hot up the back of his neck and into his cheeks. The back room is pretty dim but David must see it anyway, because he tucks his lips between his teeth to keep from smiling. 

“It’s going well,” Patrick says. He supposes it’s normal for friends in committed relationships to talk about how things are going sometimes. But David doesn’t ask about Tim the way he asked about the other guys Patrick dated. Patrick worries sometimes that David doesn’t really like him. 

“So what would you be singing? Out of curiosity?”

“I was thinking 'Truly Madly Deeply.'”

“Oh god.” David’s whole body registers his surprise and Patrick can’t help but smile. “Would not have guessed One Direction was Tim’s cup of tea.”

“One Direction?” Patrick asks, confused. “No, the Savage Garden one.”

“Oh god,” David says again, and this time the revulsion shudders through his body. He has to take another bite of yogurt to recover. It takes every muscle in Patrick’s body to hold back the laugh. “The one with the kind of whiny chorus?”

“Well I would arrange it differently,” Patrick says. “It’s just . . . I like the lyrics.”

David pauses with his spoon in his mouth and then pulls it out slowly, which. Patrick has eyes is all. He still doesn’t know how someone like David ended up happily stuck somewhere like this but he’s too damn grateful for their life here to question it anymore.

“And you’re sure this is something he would like?” David is doing what Patrick likes to think of as his empathy face, the one where he imagines himself in the given scenario and tries not to panic.

“I don’t know! I can’t decide if he’ll like it. He’s not one to sit still you know?”

“Yeah I’ve noticed that. About Tim. You two are always off looking for the most complicated route through nature with the maximum chance of being eaten by bears. Seems like you never stop.”

“Well there’s a lot of down time camping.” Patrick hears the defensiveness in his voice and tries to quell it. There is not generally a lot of down time the way they’ve been camping and hiking and paddling, but there can be.

“Sure. I mean, I wouldn’t know, obviously. If you’re happy with that, I’m happy for you.”

Patrick _is_ happy with that, but he doesn’t really want to argue about it with David. “Listen, I know Tim likes to make strangers feel good about themselves and can fit all of his clothes into a modest-sized closet and eats vegetables as a lifestyle choice, but you might find you have more in common than you think.”

They’ve been at this long enough that they both know that for them, snark is more likely to diffuse conflict than escalate it. David’s answering smile is like the waving of the white flag. “I hope so,” David says, and Patrick can see he means it because he holds his eyes for a minute before returning to his snack. David takes another scoop of yogurt while Patrick resumes his humming and chord progressions. He tries a different key to see if it helps but he still can’t quite picture it, singing this song with Tim standing near the cash, taking it in.

“Do you think this is even a good idea?” Patrick asks, setting his guitar aside. 

Being asked for relationship advice always makes David squirm. “Mm, no, I think it’s, you know, it’s not scary or embarrassing for the person you’re dating to sing at you with an acoustic guitar in front of people. I think that’s cool. But if you want to, um, do that. That’s. I mean I’m sure he would. You know. Enjoy you. It. You doing it for him.”

“Yeah.” Patrick decides he has a few more hours to ponder it. “Is Oscar coming tonight?”

“No. Um. His mom is flying in? He’s picking her up at the airport tonight.”

“So that’s going well, then,” Patrick says with a grin. He kind of misses the days when he could fluster David about Oscar the way David can fluster him about Tim. David is so used to things going well at this point that he isn’t so easily flustered. 

“Yes. We’re doing great, thanks so much.” 

“You know if you want to go with him, we can probably get someone to work the cash at the event.” That seems better, actually, performing a serenade while Oscar and David are off doing other things.

“That’s okay.” David says, dashing Patrick’s quickly rearranging plan. “I think it’s best for parents to meet me in controlled, pre-arranged brunch settings? And not trapped in a car for an hour-long journey away from all signs of culture and civilization.”

David is stirring the yogurt vigorously now and Patrick senses he might be a little nervous about meeting Oscar’s mom. 

“Hey,” he says, clapping a hand on each of David’s shoulders and giving them a little shake. “She’s going to love you. Just ask my mom.”

“Marcy Brewer is a unicorn. She doesn’t count.” Patrick doesn’t always understand the connection between David and his mother, but it makes him warm all over. David leans back against the table so Patrick’s hands fall back to his sides. 

“I’m pretty sure she talks to you more than she talks to me.” 

David stands back up in a huff, but his lip quivers because he knows it’s true. “That’s because she calls the store all the time. And we decided I would be the one to answer the phone when possible, as I have the best phone presence.”

“Yes, I still have eight voicemails of your phone presence,” Patrick says, crossing his arms.

“You still have those?” David asks, and Patrick realizes his mistake.

“I mean, somewhere, probably. I never delete anything.” It’s the best he can do and still it’s nowhere in the vicinity of sounding convincing. But the alternative, telling David how those voicemails changed the course of his life . . . He wouldn’t know where to start. He wouldn’t know how to stop.

“Mmm,” is David’s vague reply, and then he is searching the bottom of his yogurt container, probably for a way out of this conversation. Patrick looks down at his cuticles for a subject change and sees the songwriting notebook his dad gave him for his birthday on the table in front of him. 

“Anyway, speaking of parents, mine said to thank you again for redoing the whole surprise birthday party. They were pleased it was an actual surprise this time.”

“Yes well. Your mom has thanked me thrice now, so. And Tim is the one who kept you distracted. Couldn’t have pulled off the surprise otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, and absolutely does not think about all the things Tim did in his apartment to keep him occupied. “Well it meant a lot to them to be included. And to me too.”

The bell on the door rings and a small winery tour group keeps them both mercifully busy enough for the next hour to lose track of the conversation in the back room.

As Patrick is answering questions about bath salts and distributing samples of hand cream and talking up the merits of natural, locally-sourced cleaning products, his mind wanders to Tim. 

It’s been nine months since the camping trip. Patrick can’t remember being this consistently happy for this many months in a row ever. Not even when he was a kid. The store is thriving, as David likes to say, and his baseball team won the regional championship, and he’s . . . in love. He's pretty sure this is love. It seems fast. And it has been so much fun; it’s hard to believe nine months have passed already. 

It seems to Patrick like Tim moves through life at double-speed. He likes it. He loves it actually, the way Tim seems to think and act in the same breath. If their situations were reversed tonight, Tim probably wouldn’t give it another thought. He’d sing the song—or not—and move on to the next thing. Which is maybe the problem. Patrick wants this to feel like a big thing, a big moment about being maybe, probably in love, not just one in a string of next things. 

When he goes over to the café to get them tea for the afternoon, Twyla asks him what he’s performing, and when he says he’s not sure, she chatters on about how she gave her spot to Karen to debut her ventriloquist act since Gwen backed out on their duet of "Landslide" and then he’s just. Words are just. Coming. 

“I’ll do it with you. You can join me for my slot,” he says before he can stop himself. 

“Oh gosh. I mean are you sure? Most people come just to hear you,” she says. That thought makes Patrick’s shirt feel too tight across his shoulders. 

“Yeah. Of course. It’s a great song!” 

Twyla beams as her whole body relaxes—that feels good, making her happy—and he makes arrangements to practice with her behind the café once her shift is over. As he walks back to the store with their drinks, he is still trying to catch up with all the things his mouth has just volunteered him for. Maybe Patrick is starting to live life at double-speed too.

* * *

Patrick takes the stage with his guitar to whoops from the regulars in the front and a shrill whistle from Roland, to which he’s learned to only cringe inwardly. 

“Hey everyone, glad we could get _so many people_ out to our little event tonight.” From his spot by the wine David rolls his eyes and shakes his head. It will never, never get old teasing him about how Open Mic Nights have become their most successful event by far. “Tonight I’m gonna throw you all a little bit of a change-up. Twyla and I thought we’d put together a little duet for you.”

Patrick checks his tuning while Twyla comes onstage. She borrowed egg shakers from the Jazzagals which she digs out of her pocket and they perform it just like they practiced. She has a good voice; it harmonizes really well with his and together they fill the small space with warm notes and soft percussion and melancholy strumming.

Tim has seen Patrick sing with his guitar plenty of times around the campfire, and he watches the way he always does, with a huge grin as he nods along to the music. David has seen Patrick sing with his guitar at every Open Mic Night for the last three years and he’s never looked at him like this. He should have told him, probably, that he decided to perform with Twyla and not do some big gesture. But that doesn’t seem to fully explain the way he stands there at the cash, big hand wrapped tightly around the bottle of wine he’s been holding, the other one balancing Jocelyn’s glass mid-air as he watches. 

In fairness, Patrick probably should have considered the song before he said yes, speaking of lyrics. He didn’t pick it, but it’s hard not to look at David as he joins Twyla for the chorus:

" _Well I’ve been afraid of changin’,_  
_‘Cause I’ve built my life around you,_  
_But time makes you bolder,_  
_Even children get older,_  
_And I’m gettin’ older, too._ ”

David holds his gaze with eyes that say more than they have ever spoken aloud about what might have been until Jocelyn succeeds in getting David’s attention. Twyla drops out to let Patrick finish the last part of the song, shaking a soft beat over his guitar. He can’t make eye contact with anyone now, so he’s singing to the thermostat on the column in the middle of the room. 

It feels like the whole town can see it, the year he spent despairing that it might never get easier to watch someone else sweep the person he was in love with off his feet. The year he spent fumbling from one opportunity to the next, disappointed. And now the almost-year he’s spent with Tim, which feels so, so close to perfect. Sometimes he can still feel the life that slipped through his hands, like he has a memory of the weight of it, even though it was never his to hold. The thing is, this is a good life. One worth holding close.

It’s a small enough space that Patrick doesn’t have to be looking at David to see him duck into the back when the song ends. Patrick couldn’t follow if he wanted to. He has to introduce Eric. During Eric’s DJ set, Bob drops his notecards and needs help putting them back in order, and then it’s time to introduce him. David comes back out in time to witness Karen’s first foray into ventriloquism, which is easily Patrick’s favorite part of the night. From next to the stage he has the distinct pleasure of watching Ronnie pretend to love it and David pretend he only hates it a little bit.

When the night is over, Tim stays to help clean up so it’s hard to tell if David needs to talk. What would he even say to explain singing a song he didn’t mean to sing to the person he wasn’t intending to sing to? 

“You didn’t do the song,” David murmurs as he gathers up the opened wine while Patrick balances the drawer. Tim is using his height to take down the lights strung up behind the stage, humming “Landslide” under his breath. He has a nice, round baritone, and Patrick is reminded that he needs to try to talk him into singing for real.

“It wasn’t the right thing,” Patrick says. “Not for him.”

“Mmm,” David says.

”Twyla was planning to do that song with Gwen and she backed out.”

“Who the fuck is Gwen?” David asks with a mischievous eyebrow. Patrick laughs on cue at their running joke, and Tim turns and smiles at the sound of Patrick’s laughter. “You know, you guys should go. I’ll finish up. Here.” David hands Patrick a mostly-full bottle of wine to take with him. It’s really just taking out the garbage and turning out lights left to do. “Plus I can only take the humming for so long,” he adds in a low voice that is supposed to sound serious but isn’t. 

“Maybe we should join you and Oscar for karaoke some time.”

David’s reaction flashes quickly across his face, but Patrick is adept enough at reading David Rose to catch the surprise and then fear and then tentative acceptance. “Yeah. That sounds like a disaster. But I’m open to suggestions.”

“Noted. Hey. It’s going to be great tomorrow,” Patrick says as he shrugs into his jacket that Tim brings over to the cash. “Oscar’s mom gets to spend the day with one of my favorite people. She’s very lucky.”

“Yeah, thanks,” David says, and he looks like he believes it. “Goodnight, Patrick. Tim.” 

“Cheers,” Tim says, pulling David into a hug. Which means Patrick should give him one too, so he does, even though David isn’t really much of a hugger. David’s sweaters are so soft and loose most of the time Patrick forgets how solid he is. It makes him squeeze tighter and close his eyes just for a second before letting go. 

As they walk home, Tim draws Patrick against his side with an arm around his shoulder. He’s enough taller that they fit together well this way. Patrick likes it more than he imagined possible. “You sounded so good tonight.”

“Thanks,” Patrick says, still feeling a little wrung out from it. 

“So I know we talked about paddling the river this weekend, but I heard the northern lights are supposed to be great at Manitoulin and I was thinking we could head over there with the tent instead.”

It sounds fun, and Tim would make it great. He always does. But Patrick thinks about what David said, about how they’re always going. About how he’s been feeling a little wrung out in general, even before the song.

“Would it be okay if we stay in? I could get the fireplace going. Maybe, I dunno, order food and play a game or something?”

“You feeling alright?” Tim asks, stopping on the sidewalk a block away from Patrick’s apartment. He tugs a little on the elastic at the cuff of his sleeve; it’s just about the only tell he has that he’s unsure of his footing in any given situation.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. And he’s feeling more than okay, so he kisses Tim in the glow of the streetlights, smiling against his lips as Tim’s hands wrap under his jacket to pull him closer. “Just feels like it might be good to take it easy for a weekend.”

Tim smiles and presses a kiss to the base of Patrick’s forehead. Patrick loves it when he kisses him there, right where his lips are naturally aligned when they stand face-to-face. Patrick can smell his aftershave, a hint of cedar. 

“Now when you say games,” Tim says. “Does that include the game we discussed last night? Because I for one—”

“Is that the deciding factor?” Patrick asks with a laugh. He’s not sure he wants to negotiate that particular game here in the middle of town.

“Certainly not,” Tim says. “I’m in regardless. I just want to make sure I pack accordingly.”

“Ah,” Patrick says, and pulls him down into a more thorough kiss, using just a touch of teeth this time. “We have time for more than one game, I think.”

“I can’t wait,” Tim says.

They laugh their way through the rest of the walk home, teasing and flirting and working each other up. They laugh and tease and flirt and work each other up through their weekend in. Through games and a movie and conversations about nothing, about everything, curled up together on the couch, twisted up together in bed. 

It’s not over yet when Tim turns to him late Monday afternoon, fingers made rough by the outdoors tracing delicately along the sensitive skin on the inside of Patrick’s thigh. 

“You have good ideas,” he says, looking up at the ceiling with a wry smile.

“Thank you?” Patrick's fingers are already entwined in Tim’s hair, and he tugs to get Tim to look at him.

“We should do your ideas more often,” Tim says with a shrug. “I think after Danny died I got used to moving because it hurt to stand still. But standing still with you is nice.”

Patrick tugs again in his hair and then at his arms to pull Tim up so he can kiss him. He lingers in it a little, soft and gentle and chaste, knowing by now that Tim benefits from a little extra attention whenever his brother comes up. 

“Before I moved here, I got used to standing still. I started to hate myself for it.” Patrick says it so softly into Tim’s neck, but Tim must hear it because his arms close warm around him, pulling him closer. “And with you, I forget that it’s not always a bad thing. That sometimes, sometimes I still need that.”

“So we should do this more often,” Tim says, like it’s just that easy. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s as easy as just saying you want something to someone who wants your happiness enough to give it to you.

“Yeah we should,” Patrick says. 

“And what about this?” Tim asks, palming Patrick’s cock, which is certainly not looking for a rest. “Can I do this again?”

Patrick groans because it’s a very Tim thing to say and it’s awful and it works anyway. 

“Yes,” Patrick says, “Please.”

“Good.”

* * *

The walk to the beach is just under three kilometers, just enough to keep it from being overrun by tourists. Still there are a fair amount of people scattered along this isolated stretch of shoreline that isn’t heavily wooded or lined with mottled rock. Tim drops his backpack and starts picking through it for his large beach towel, sunglasses, book, and snacks.

No one is in the water, and Patrick assumes it’s too cold now that summer has given way to September, but Tim strips down to his swimming trunks and wades in. “Coming?” he calls. Patrick gets to see him more naked than this frequently enough, but that doesn’t diminish how good he looks standing there, skin bronzed and hair lightened by the fading summer sun. 

Tim goes fully under the water and comes back up, looking like he belongs as much to the lake as the land, so Patrick shakes his head and goes in after him. There’s probably somewhere Tim can go that Patrick won’t follow, but he hasn’t yet figured out where that might be. Patrick should tell him that he loves him. It’s been a month since he didn’t sing at the Open Mic Night. He should just say it and forget trying to turn it into a big moment.

The water is cold but not unbearable, especially not with Tim in perpetual close contact. Patrick is hyperaware of the eyes on the beach until, much like the cold, apprehension about being watched in the arms of another man—residue of his life before Schitt’s Creek—starts to drift away on the surface of the water. He’s left with the pleasure of Tim’s warm, slick skin against his own.

Hunger eventually pushes them back to the shore, and they towel off and put their shirts on to warm up in the sun as they eat the sandwiches Patrick packed. Patrick assumes they’re going back in the water after lunch but Tim looks at him with a shy smile and asks if they can be lazy on the beach for the rest of the day. Patrick tries to answer but can only really nod, so Tim settles back on his towel with his book. Patrick digs his own book out of his backpack and follows suit. 

“What are you reading?” Tim asks. 

“ _Smart Systems_ ,” Patrick says. “Thinking about automating some of the stuff I do for the store.”

“No.”

“No? No what?”

“Just no. That is not a proper book for a day at the beach with your boyfriend.”

“Oh and what are you reading?” Patrick asks, sticking a finger in to mark his page as he leans over to peer at the title.

“ _Gideon the Ninth_. Just released. Recommended by a mate at my old publishing house.”

“And what makes it a proper beach read?” Patrick asks. He just barely resists echoing his tone and accent exactly.

“Are there hot necromancer lesbians in—” He reaches for Patrick’s book, since he’s already forgotten the title. “ _Smart Systems_?”

“Sadly no,” Patrick says. “Chapter Five is a real page turner, though.” Tim flips open to Chapter Five and peers at Patrick from under a dubious eyebrow. 

“Chapter Five: Data and Analytics. Patrick.”

“What?” he asks, and they’re both trying to keep a straight face. It’s hopeless, Patrick always cracks first. He cracks now with a grin and a shrug. It’s not like Tim didn’t know what he was getting here. 

“Fine. Luckily, I always have a back-up book on my phone. Here.” He tosses _Smart Systems_ into his open backpack and hands over _Gideon the Ninth_. “There are nine houses, a bit like feudal lords, and each has their own planet. It’s unapologetically queer and has a variety of different characters, none of whom are caricatures except for the people who literally turn out to be caricatures.” Patrick takes the book but he can’t really take his eyes off Tim. It’s easy to forget sometimes when they’re exploring the great outdoors together that Tim has a rich interior life, his brain and his heart working overtime to power all that energy he has for people and their stories. Tim opens the book and pokes at the first page; his sales pitch is not done. “Everyone has layers and skill sets and even if you don’t like them you kind of respect them? Which is fucking unfair but will blow your mind. Guaranteed. The world is visual and real and the magical system is really solid. _That_ is a proper beach read.”

Patrick is nowhere near ready to concede necromancy as a proper beach read but he’ll give it a try. “Should I even ask what the back-up book is?” 

“ _Kith and Kin_. Should I even ask if you’ve read it?”

“Probably not,” Patrick laughs.

“I keep it on my phone because I never know when I’m going to need it. I cry every time I read it. Found family and people being good people and the world just being how it fucking ought to be you know? People giving people a fucking minute to get it right.”

“That one sounds good, too,” Patrick says softly.

“I keep saying I’ll make you a list, but this settles it. I’m making you a list. And you can read it or you can read—” He has to dig the book back out of his bag again to remember the title. “— _Smart Systems_ , but at least I will have done my part.”

Tim settles in then, but the glare from the sun is bad at that angle so he readjusts with his head on Patrick’s stomach. He mutters as he does it about hard copies being superior beach reads for this reason exactly but Patrick suspects neither of them mind this shift in positions too much. 

Patrick has a hard time focusing at first with the weight of Tim’s sun-warmed head on his stomach, the way the hum of his perpetual motion quiets during these rare moments that he holds still, the way he squints a little at his phone and chuckles to himself occasionally and uses his free hand to sweep through the sand or absently scratch at his head. The way the hairs on his arms catch the sun and turn gold when he does. But then the book grips him and even Tim can’t draw him out of it. 

Gideon has a sword to her neck and the necromancer of the seventh house in her arms when Tim lifts his head over the top of Patrick’s book and tosses his phone aside. 

“The other reason you bring a real book to the beach is that it can never run out of battery.”

“You can give Chapter Five of my book a try,” Patrick says. He reaches blindly for Tim’s shoulder and finds it on the second try for a comforting squeeze, unable to tear his eyes away from the book. 

“Tempting. Speaking of tempting, maybe we should go back in the water,” he says, laying kisses along Patrick’s stomach.

“Maybe. In a minute?”

“Where are you?” Tim asks, laughing. He’s going to be so fucking smug about this later. Patrick can’t wait.

“Harrow just challenged this poor girl who—I’m not sure, but I think—is about to die in Gideon’s arms.”

“So we’re not going back in the water,” Tim chuckles. He slides his sunglasses on and scoots his towel over so he can curl up next to Patrick and read with him. And the book is even better this way.

In another hour, Patrick is so absorbed in the cutthroat world of Gideon that he almost doesn’t hear it, the soft, throaty whisper of, “I love you,” against his ear. It drags him back to this world and makes him feel like he’s off on an adventure of his own. Which is not far off, really.

Patrick does close the book and rolls enough so that he can see Tim’s face as he slides off his sunglasses. “I love you, too,” he says. And the moment feels about as big as any moment ever has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> olive2read did all kinds of brainstorming with me about Tim's idea of a proper beach read and the perfect back-up book and is just generally helping him come to life.
> 
>  _Gideon the Ninth_ is by Tamsyn Muir
> 
>  _Kith and Kim_ is by Kris Ripper
> 
>  _Smart Systems_ is, from what I can tell, a book invented by the Schitt's Creek prop department that appears on Patrick's coffee table in S5E5. Thanks to RhetoricalQuestions for identifying it.
> 
> Noah Reid (Patrick) and Sarah Levy (Twyla) performed "The Best" together at Noah's L.A. show which is fortuitous given the events in this chapter. Their voices sound great together. I don't have a link but you can probably find it all over InstaTubmlTweeterBook or whatever fannish space is your favorite.


	5. 2020

When Stevie sends him a text message before dawn on a warm August morning, Patrick is both not surprised and completely shocked.

_David broke up with Oscar_  
_I did NOT tell you this_

Patrick sits up straight in bed and unplugs his phone from the charger. Next to him, Tim grunts and cracks an eye open. Then he takes the phone and deposits it without ceremony on the chair next to his side of the bed where he keeps his things when he stays over. “It’s still dark out.”

“Hey, sorry, this is important,” Patrick says as he chases after it, getting a groan from Tim but no further defensive maneuvers. Patrick stares down at the message and then swipes at it to reply.

 _What happened?_

He shakes his head and deletes it.

 _Where is he?_

Delete.

 _What can I do?_

Send. Stevie’s reply comes right away. 

_You take the store, I’ll take him._

Patrick drops his phone back on his nightstand and rubs his face in his hands. 

“Everything okay?” Tim’s voice is groggy and his eyes are still closed, but he reaches out a hand to rub Patrick’s arm in a manner that would probably be soothing if he wasn’t sluggish and indiscriminate with sleep.

“David and Oscar broke up.”

“Bloody hell. Is David okay?” Tim asks, dragging himself toward consciousness. Patrick loves that even though they’re both friends with Oscar, Tim knows immediately whose side they are on.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you need to go? I can drive you.” 

“Um. No,” Patrick says. “Sorry to wake you.” It’s still dark outside and he has no idea where David is and even if he did, he has no idea what he would do for him that Stevie isn’t already doing better.

“S’alright. C’mere.” Tim pushes and prods and pulls at Patrick until he’s spooned around him. Tim kisses the slope of his shoulder and places a hand flat over Patrick’s heart. Patrick is grateful to be held in place. It’s soothing and does more than expected to quell the sloshing unease inside him, the dramatic shift of going to bed with one truth and waking up with another.

“I love you,” Patrick says. 

“Mm’you too.” And before long, Tim is snoring softly in his ear. 

Patrick tries to go back to sleep. He closes his eyes and slows his breathing to match Tim’s steady in-and-out against his back. But he can’t turn his brain off. 

From Patrick’s usual vantage point behind the counter at Rose Apothecary, it unraveled very slowly, a loose thread long unnoticed or ignored until one day Patrick realized that their relationship seemed a bit frayed around the edges. David arriving on foot at work instead of being dropped off. Lingering in the store after hours to work on the website or switch the locations of kitchen wares and aromatherapy products. Opting to eat lunch with Stevie or Patrick more and Oscar less. 

But occasionally Patrick got a more intimate vantage point. And when he did, it started to seem like it wasn’t just the edges that were ragged. He’d accidentally interrupted an argument outside Patrick’s barely-a-surprise birthday party last month by stepping out for some fresh air. When they came back inside, David spent the night talking to Patrick’s parents and Mr. Rose. Tim and Patrick both witnessed a round of bickering when Patrick and Oscar dragged their reluctant boyfriends to a minor-league baseball game. After they agreed to table it, David became more engrossed in the game than the hot dog still uneaten in his lap. And lately whenever Patrick asked David how things were going, he was met with a crabby, “Everything is fine.”

Patrick is assuming David will take the day off, so when David shows up for work at ten o’clock as usual, Patrick attempts to hold back his surprise. David’s slightly-puffy eyes are the only indication anything is amiss. He puts his things in the back and brings out a box of body milk for restocking and chats with customers like it’s nothing. During a lull just before lunch, he rings up a container of eucalyptus under-eye serum for himself and parks in front of the mirror to dab it into the puffiness with a surprisingly steady hand. 

When things slow down mid-afternoon, Patrick comes back from the bathroom to find David folding sweaters by the back table. Patrick begins working on the stack of cardigans next to him, tucking the tags between the buttons according to the merchandising guide David created now that they have an actual employee. 

Patrick stops folding and plants his hands flat on the table, then leans into David’s shoulder with a gentle nudge. David drops his head with an exhale and nudges back. 

“Stevie told you,” he says.

“She just wanted to make sure I could cover the store if you didn’t show.”

“So I assume she, um. How much do you know?”

David is still staring out the front windows and flattening imaginary bumps on the sweater and acting like the more words he’s asked to find the harder it is to find them. So Patrick just hands him the phone with his text chain with Stevie open. 

David looks at it and nods. “I see you and Stevie are still capering behind my back. And sharing terrible product reviews.”

“Oh yes. Always.” Patrick turns and leans over the table so David has to look at him. The moment stretches and stretches, their eye contact the only clear route through a situation that feels very hard to navigate. Patrick can see David’s mouth quiver before he has to look away. And then he’s shaking his head and blinking back tears.

“Is there anything you need to know?” David asks. Patrick just shakes his head. 

“Only if you need me to cover the store. Otherwise nothing unless you want me to. Anything you need to say?”

“I don’t think I can today,” David says. Patrick offers a sympathetic smile and nods, then turns back to the sweaters. 

David doesn’t say anything more for the next week; Stevie is annoyingly tight-lipped, too. But gradually the barest details come out. Things that didn’t matter at first started to matter. They tried for a while before David broke it off. The only other thing Patrick discovers is that David is resigned and fairly calm about all of it. Which means that even though he technically sees David almost every day, he’s starting to miss him.

* * *

David usually makes the annual trek to visit some of the more far-flung vendors by himself. David knows their contracts and business models backwards and forwards now, and if there are questions that require Patrick’s input, it’s easy enough to catch him by phone. But with David being a lot less than his normal setting of A Lot, Patrick decides they should make the trip together. He hasn’t seen some of their vendors in person since before the store opened and it seems like a good chance to change that. And anyway this is exactly the type of situation they hired Gillian for in the first place.

The morning of the trip, Tim wakes him up before his alarm with soft kisses across the back of his shoulders. His mouth lingers over the marks he made the night before, lips gentle against the still-tender skin. 

“If I didn’t know better I would think you were—ah—” Patrick gasps into the pillow as Tim’s teeth graze along his neck now that he knows Patrick is awake. “—trying to mark your territory.”

“Oh that’s definitely what I was doing,” Tim says, his morning-hard cock pressing against Patrick’s ass. “I assumed that was quite clear.”

“We have separate rooms for the night,” Patrick says. Again. 

“Mm, maybe I should put one in a more visible spot,” Tim says, nibbling at Patrick’s neck and tickling him in the process. “Although I think it’s implied that all of you is off limits.”

“Mmm of course.”

“Actually you know what? I’ll grant him the left hand. For like . . . comforting back pats or something.”

“That’s very generous of you.” Patrick laughs into the curve of Tim’s bicep, pressed against his own. “But why the left hand?”

“Because you give shit handjobs with your left hand. So if you decide to really work around the fine print at least I know he won’t be coming back for a second go.”

Patrick does his best to roll onto his back with Tim on top of him. “Timothy Stoker. I will—” Tim stops him from finishing that thought with a kiss now that his mouth is more accessible. It’s bruising and possessive, two things Tim generally is not. 

“We don’t have time for all the things I want to do to you when you call me Timothy. So put that on hold for now and roll over.” 

“No,” Patrick says, and watches the light hazel of Tim’s eyes darken into misty storms. Patrick always watches to pinpoint the exact moment when they do that. 

“No?” Tim asks.

“No. You can’t insult me and expect me to just flop over for you.” Patrick bites his lip to keep the smile in check.

“To be clear, I was planning to do nice things to you. Or not entirely nice, but.” Tim’s grin flashes and Patrick pulls him down into a kiss. He’s feeling a little possessive himself.

“I know,” Patrick says, rolling them both. He kisses him again and then sits back, straddling Tim’s thighs. He takes Tim’s cock in his left hand and strokes once, again, working his thumb like Tim likes. Tim laughs and grabs at him, pulling him down into another kiss, hand pinned between them. 

“Oh so you’ve decided to prove me wrong, have you?” Tim’s question scrapes against his jaw, but they are both laughing as Patrick sits back up. Patrick reaches for lube and settles his hand back in a place where it has spent a fair amount of time proving Tim wrong, all jokes aside. “Fine then. Show me what you can do.”

Tim makes a show of being nonplussed by Patrick’s thumb stroking slowly over the leaking tip of his cock. He folds his hands behind his head and his face is a dare, one that grows darker and more wild as he watches Patrick work. But Patrick knows every one of Tim’s tightened muscles and twitching eye movements and crooked smiles by now, so he knows he’s winning, his victory building under the calm surface.

Patrick bends low so his face is inches from Tim’s. “I’m so sorry this isn’t working for you.”

“As you—ah—you should be,” Tim says, bucking into Patrick’s hand when it stops moving. Patrick grins at him as he sits back and removes his hand entirely. Patrick reaches for his own aching cock with his right hand but Tim catches his wrist and holds it. 

“I thought you had something to prove,” he says. “If I’m stuck with the left one so are you.” His voice is even deeper than usual and clogged in his throat and Patrick knows it’s taking everything he has to pretend he’s not completely and utterly gone when Patrick takes him in hand again. He’s so hot like this, smug and scrappy. Tim often makes Patrick feel like he has something to prove, which would be exhausting except Tim also makes it feel like he can fail without consequence. Patrick finds himself leaning into that freedom more and more, in bed and out of it.

Tim is still holding his wrist and he uses it to drag him down, his tongue as impatient for Patrick as the rest of him now. Patrick shifts so he can take them both in his hand and then Tim grins and stops fighting, fucking into his hand and against his cock. Patrick comes first, letting himself go into all that glorious freedom. Then he gentles around them as Tim comes. He twists his right hand, wrist still trapped by Tim's hand, and weaves their fingers together as he collapses forward at last. “Seems like you hated it,” he whispers into Tim’s neck.

“Very much,” Tim says, pressing kisses against Patrick’s skin like a truce. A tie. 

After, Tim takes the first shower and then packs up his overnight bag while Patrick gets ready. He feels bad that Tim always has to rush out when he does. Patrick should buy a table for his side of the bed so he doesn’t have to use the chair. He should get him a key and a drawer and a few hangers in the closet. He wonders what Tim would think about that. 

Patrick offers to make breakfast but Tim says he’ll get something at home, and they finish getting ready amid sparse conversation. 

“You okay?” Patrick asks as they walk to their cars. “You seem quiet.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Patrick decides not to push it. 

Tim kisses Patrick again at the cars and whispers, “Safe travels.” Then he hops in his old Volvo station wagon and cranks down the window. “If you love me, you’ll send me minute-by-minute updates and photos of the both of you fully-clothed.”

Patrick agrees with a laugh and kisses him goodbye again before he drives away. Then he gets in his own car and takes out his phone and snaps a picture. 

_Just got in my car and turned on the ignition. I love you._

* * *

David is his new stoic self when he gets in the car. He reviews their itinerary with Patrick and checks to make sure they have all the vendor folders and rests his elbow against the window and his chin in his hand, staring blankly at the open fields across the highway while Patrick puts fuel in the tank. 

Patrick texts Tim another update and gets back in the car, handing David one of the Rose Apothecary totes that he packed the day before. 

“What’s this?”

“It’s my possibly misguided attempt to cheer you up.”

“That’s not necessary. I’m fine, Patrick,” David says, and Patrick believes it even less than the last fifty times he’s said it. 

“Just open it,” Patrick says. 

David rolls his eyes and unties the handles, peering inside.

“Licorice,” he says. 

“You once told me a road trip without licorice is like _Notting Hill_ without Julia Roberts. Which I assume is bad.”

“Oh very.” David reaches in the bag again. “I don’t think I made a similar statement about mini-twist pretzels.”

“I realize it’s barely in the same family as mall pretzels, but I had an availability issue there. Did you know Pretzelmaker at the Elmdale mall closed?” David’s head whips around.

“You went to Elm—I mean yes. Which officially means there is no reason left to go to the Elmdale Regency Mall,” David says. He digs in the bag and takes out the last item, a thin plastic case. Patrick resists the urge to squirm in his chair.

“And what’s this?” David asks, even though it’s obviously a CD.

“It’s a mix CD.”

“A mix CD,” David says carefully. “Your music or mine?”

“Mostly yours, but a few selections that might qualify as mutually acceptable if not firmly your taste. I thought it might be a nice alternative to Station 87.3 Smooth Country Jams, which, if I recall correctly, is the only one we can get once we’re past the last of the Elms.”

“I see. I’ll remind you that if your car had a half-decent stereo we could plug in a phone and play literally any song we want.” 

“I’ll remind you that you are welcome to drive your car whenever you’d like.” 

“Hmm,” is all David can say, because he doesn’t have a car. Patrick has to keep his eyes mostly on the road, so he can’t read each micro-transition of David’s face. But even out of his peripheral vision it’s the most expressive he’s seen it in days so he’s going to count it as a win.

“This was very nice of you,” David says finally, opening the bag of licorice. 

“I’ve been through my share of breakups,” Patrick says with a shrug.

“Oh yes I was there for the last one. You got drunk, called me a prickly panther, and invited yourself to a threesome with me and my boy—my boyfriend.” David blinks and clears his throat. “So you’re clearly an expert.”

“Wait, what? I didn’t do that.”

“Oh you definitely did.”

“Is that why Stevie calls you The Panther sometimes?”

“Yes. She was almost out the door when you said that too. So thank you for that.”

“Okay but you and me and—I mean we didn’t . . .” Patrick knows the answer, but he needs to hear it anyway. 

“Oh my god, no. Consent is hot, Patrick and that night you were very much not.”

“Very poetic.”

David rolls his eyes but the corner of his mouth tugs up just slightly, and Patrick takes note. So light teasing is acceptable.

David opens the CD and turns it around his finger so it sends a rainbow of refracted light around the car. The small smile on David’s face as he looks at Patrick’s handwriting on the front causes Patrick to let out the breath he just realized he’s been holding. This is going okay so far. This is one real smile more than Patrick saw the day before. 

And then just as quickly as the smile came, it disappears. “Oh my god. Is this a breakup mix?”

“Yes?”

“If you put ‘Landslide’ on there I swear I will leave you on the side of the road and go on without you.”

“What? No, it’s not.” Patrick snatches the CD away before David can read the track list. “And anyway even if it was, I’m driving. How would you leave me on the side of the road?”

“Alexis showed me how to take over a vehicle once. Apparently it’s a skill she needed among the drug lords of Thailand.”

“I’m appalled, and now I kind of wish I’d put ‘Landslide’ on the CD just so I could see how you manage that.”

The silence hangs in the car for a minute too long until it grows thick and heavy.

“Well don’t keep me in suspense!” David says. “Put it in so I can start bemoaning the rest of your choices.”

Patrick inserts the disk and The Clash fills the car with the punchy guitar at the beginning of “Train in Vain.” 

“So out of curiosity, would you say you thought The Clash would be in the mutually acceptable category?”

“I took a bit of a chance on this one,” Patrick admits. “But you do know the song so.” 

David twists his mouth to one side and doesn’t argue, which feels like a win. Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” pulls his smile free as he hums along under his breath. When Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” starts pumping out of the speakers next, David’s head is nodding along too.

When “Heartbreak Hotel” starts, Patrick keeps his eyes focused on the horizon. He can feel David’s glare. 

“You know, this is a little bit of a mess, thematically speaking.”

“Well when I made it I wasn’t sure what kind of break-up we were dealing with. Needed to cover all my bases.”

“And now he’s using baseball metaphors,” David mutters.

“Baseball. You got it on the first try.” 

“I’m more confident in my understanding of baseball than your understanding of how to compile a playlist at this point.”

Patrick smiles to himself and lets him have the last word. When Patrick first met David, he used to make a game out of poking at his mood until it brightened, out of extracting even the tightest of smiles. He ceded a lot of that ground to Oscar, mostly because he was so good at it. But it feels good to know he’s still got it.

David starts to sing along with Destiny’s Child through one of the most tentatively stubborn smiles Patrick has ever seen and continues through Lauryn Hill. Patrick starts to tap the steering wheel along to the music because this is going well. This is working. 

The next song starts with a plaintive, “Hey hey,” and an unmistakable beat.

“Absolutely not,” David says over the top of “Bye Bye Bye.” Patrick stops him from turning off the music by shielding the radio controls with his hand. 

“I know you know this. Sing with me and Justin, David.”

“Okay first, this is J.C. Justin’s solo is later. Second, _absolutely_ not.”

Patrick turns the volume up and rolls down the windows. “Guess I have to sing loud enough for both of us.”

“This is the worst idea you have ever had, and I’ll remind you that you once attempted to adorn the front window of our carefully-curated boutique retail establishment with plungers.”

Patrick would stop the music, call the whole thing off, except David is smiling like Patrick hasn’t seen in weeks. And he’s amped up the griping, which is always a good sign. Patrick sings louder and does the shaking fist from the dance in the music video when he can spare a hand on the wheel. David is trying not to laugh until finally he starts belting the lyrics out of the open windows as they drive down the empty stretch of highway. David of course knows every word.

“There we go, David. Let them hear you in the nosebleed section.” 

David shakes his head and mutters, “Oh my goddd,” but keeps singing.

They’re almost through the CD by the time they reach the first vendor. The trips between vendors are shorter and they talk strategy with the radio off. They spend the day sampling products and negotiating contract renewals and catching up. They should do vendor trips together more often, Patrick thinks. Especially to the closer ones. They have an energy together that’s more dynamic than either of them alone. 

Patrick sends Tim updates at each stop. And he sends Tim a picture of both of them at the roadside diner where they stop for dinner while David polishes off a waffle and accompanying slice of black cherry rhubarb pie. 

_60 km from the hotel. Let you know when we get there._

On their way back out to the car, David bumps into him gently with his shoulder and whispers, “Thanks for today.” 

“You’re welcome,” Patrick says, bumping him back.

Patrick puts the key in the ignition and he knows immediately that there’s a problem. It makes a whir as it tries to start but then the car goes deathly silent again. David gives him three tries before he starts to fidget in his seat.

“I thought you said you fixed this,” he says.

“I did. Bob just put a new battery in last week.”

Patrick tries a few more times before popping the hood, even though his car knowledge is limited to checking the oil and knowing where to put the jump cables. He slams the hood and pulls up the surrounding area on his phone, but the only mechanic he finds is closed.

“I’m going to go back into the diner and see if they have any ideas,” David says. 

One thing leads to another and the server gets in touch with someone named Lou who is kind enough to tow Patrick’s car to her shop and take a look. The next updates to Tim happen from the tow truck and the garage while the mechanic pokes around under the hood and diagnoses the Corolla with a failed starter.

“Well, fellas, I’ll have to get the part. Should be able to go to Fernwood tomorrow morning. Get you going by ten,” she says. 

Patrick breathes a sigh of relief. If they can push back their visit to Rhonda, the cat-scarf vendor, they should be roughly on schedule. When they ask about a place to stay, she drives them ten minutes to a little motel on the main road and tells the proprietor to take good care of them. The sign outside advertises double suites, which apparently means a lone double-sized bed and little else. When they inquire about a second room, they are told the place is full. 

David’s foul mood takes advantage of all the standing around in the diner parking lot and dusty garage to make a strong comeback.

“Maybe when your car visits Bob five times in four weeks, that’s a sign you shouldn’t trust Bob. Or your car. Or both.” David says once the motel room door closes behind them. “I’m sleeping on that side.” 

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Ew, no. No one is touching this floor.”

“I’ll sleep in the car then,” Patrick says. 

“Oh, you mean the car that’s at the shop?” David asks. 

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.”

“That’s about four more fucks than I’ve ever heard you give. I’m flattered that the prospect of sharing a bed with me has brought it out of you,” David says. 

Patrick gives him a long look, hopefully one that conveys he’s not in the mood for any of this. David clearly isn’t either. He takes a drawer out of the dresser with a huff, inspects it for vermin, sets it on the floor, and props up his bag inside it.

“I’ll call Rhonda about rescheduling and let the Bouchards know we might be late,” Patrick says, digging out his phone. His battery dies before Rhonda can answer. He tosses it across the bed and growls a low, “Fuck,” to himself.

“Apparently we can’t trust you with batteries today. Forget it. I’ll call them,” David says. He sits down on the opposite side of the bed facing the bathroom. “Um, Patrick,” David says, using an entirely different tone, “this bed appears to be coin-operated.”

“What?”

He turns to see David patting a metal box bolted onto the nightstand. It has a brass crank and prices listed: one quarter for a fifteen-minute massage, two quarters for thirty-five minutes. Such is the elite quality of this motel that it’s not even the classic Magic Fingers brand.

“David,” Patrick starts. But really what else can he possibly say? He keeps trying to make things better and ends up making them worse.

“It’s fine,” David says, shaking his head. 

“Clearly it’s not fine. Stop saying things are fine!” David winds up his surprise at Patrick’s outburst and looks like he might have one of his own, but instead he breathes out sharply, takes a small travel case out of the top of his bag, and disappears into the bathroom. 

Patrick plugs in his phone and changes into his pajamas and trades places with David in the bathroom. When he comes back out, David has folded the comforter back and crawled under the blanket and sheet. 

“Rhonda and the Bouchards are fine with pushing things back tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Patrick says. 

“I’m sorry I got mad about the car,” David says.

“No. I’ve put off replacing it for too long.”

“So we both agree then,” David says, but it’s soft.

“I’m sorry about the motel. I booked a really nice place in Cedar Grove. I know you’ve spent enough time in a motel room.”

“I have,” David agrees. “But I don’t regret any of that time, so why should this be any different?”

Patrick nods and crawls in. The bed feels very small. He’s not worried about anything happening here. Even if Tim wasn’t enormously important to him, this would not be the time or place to make a move. But he puts in his mouthguard anyway, as an extra precaution.

“Oh god. What is that?” David asks. 

“It’s my mouthguard,” Patrick says. “It keeps me from grinding my teeth.”

“Somehow that makes perfect sense.”

“Actually I don’t use it much anymore,” Patrick says, and then pops the mouthguard out again. “But I’m feeling a little stressed tonight—not sure why that could be—so it seemed like a good idea.”

“Ah,” David says, cracking a smile. They both stare at each other for an extra beat, and then David turns and looks up at the ceiling.

“Goodnight, David,” Patrick says, settling the mouthguard back in place.

“Goodnight, Patrick.”

David reaches to turn out his light and then in the darkness, Patrick hears a loud cranking sound. And then the whole bed is shaking. It’s accompanied by a mechanical rumble that sounds more like a lawn mower than anything else. 

Patrick hears David next to him, but he can’t tell what he’s doing. When he flips on the lamp, David is lying with his hands over his face and laughing.

“Is this funny to you?” Patrick asks. His s-sounds are drawn out by the mouthguard which only sets David off more. 

“Who the fuck knows anymore,” David says, but he’s holding his stomach like he’s in pain and finally after thirty-three years of life Patrick has a use for the word _chortle_. Because David chortles. “C’mon, you have to lay down to get the full experience.”

So Patrick does, and maybe this idea was ahead of its time because the stress and anxiety of the day shakes out of him in round full-belly laughs. They’re both crying by the time the ticking of the timer clicks the bed off. Patrick has full, fat tears rolling down his cheeks and his stomach hurts like he’s done two hundred crunches. 

Patrick pops the mouthguard back out. “You couldn’t spare the extra quarter for the full thirty-five minutes?” Patrick asks.

“You have to work up to that,” David says, biting his bottom lip. 

“Mmm,” Patrick says. 

“Well catastrophes and terrible music and gnashing of teeth aside,” David says, “This is the best day I’ve had in a long time.”

“I’m glad,” Patrick whispers. David rolls over so he is facing the bathroom and sets the alarm on his phone. Patrick rolls toward the door and sets his own alarm. He texts Tim goodnight and turns off his lamp and tries to go to sleep. 

He’s almost unconscious when he feels the bed shaking again. There’s no mechanical hum this time, just silent spasms, and Patrick thinks maybe David is still laughing until he hears it, a muffled sob. Patrick realizes with a rush what is happening. 

He flips on his lamp and pops out his mouthguard and turns to David with a gentle hand on his back. 

“David,” he tries. He doesn’t know what else to say.

David swipes at his eyes and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I thought you were asleep.”

“Okay, hey,” Patrick says, tugging on him until he rolls over. “I’m awake. Will you talk to me?”

David sniffles and shudders and cries more softly now as he tries to sit up a bit. “I’m sorry. I think I just finally got used to sleeping alone again and this all became a bit much.”

“Okay.” Patrick gets up to get a box of tissues and comes back and gathers him closer into the groove of his shoulder, and lets David cry until he runs out of tears. 

“This is the first time I’ve ever broken up with someone,” David says, more steady. “I mean it’s not. I’ve broken up with a thousand people. But nobody that I cared about or respected or thought was nice.”

“Hmm.” Patrick rubs circles against David’s back with his left hand and holds the tissue box on standby in his right. He knows sometimes the best way to get David to talk is to wait expectantly.

David doesn’t say anything for a long time, until he does. “I knew he didn’t want to get married. He told me early on that marriage wasn’t something he ever saw himself doing. And at the time, I hadn’t been in a relationship for four months much less four—four years. I laughed when he told me. I laughed. Because I thought who in their right mind would want to marry me, you know?” 

Patrick doesn’t have an uncomplicated answer to that. Patrick wants to say something helpful about how everyone is different and it’s good that David learned that about himself and it’s understandable that Oscar feels differently because . . . because . . . Well, the problem with trying to be helpful is that Patrick can’t even wrap his head around it. His gut reaction after meeting David was to tie himself to him immediately. He can’t fathom what that might be like, not wanting to be stuck with David Rose.

“Anyway. It was fine at first. A year, two years, it didn’t matter. I didn’t even know if marriage was something I wanted. But I don’t know. I started to want it. But I feel stupid for wanting it. What kind of person breaks up with someone they love because they want one stupid day of pageantry?”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting someone to make promises to you, David. Commitments. A wedding may not be the only way to do that, but there’s no shame in it if that’s the way you want to do it.”

“Maybe,” David says. He takes another tissue from the box in Patrick’s hand and blows his nose. And he sits up and rearranges the pillows behind him so Patrick puts his hand back in his lap. “I’m just worried I made a huge mistake.”

“You know how I was engaged before I moved here?”

“Yes. I mean just from the one time you mentioned it and the handful of times your mom has.” Patrick cringes inwardly at that.

“Yeah. Well, I was a stack of very fancy embossed invites away from marrying her. Picked them up from the printer, took one look at them, and panicked. I threw them in the dumpster behind the building and called everything off.”

“Are you sure you’re not confusing this with a movie I made you watch?” David asks.

Patrick snorts and shakes his head. “Unfortunately no. The thing is, I really thought I wanted to marry her. I _want_ a marriage someday. But when it came down to it, wanting the same thing wasn’t enough either.”

“Mmm,” David hums. “I don’t think this is quite the same, on account of your specific preferences.”

Patrick smiles at the way he says it, the little I’m-the-smartest-one-in-the-room tone that Patrick adores. “You’re right; it’s not. My point is that I didn’t have to identify exactly what was wrong to decide I was going to look for something better.”

David looks at him the way he does sometimes, like he’s about to be more honest than he’d like to be. “I know you don’t like it when I say I’m fine. But the worst part is, I think I sort of am? I mean clearly I’m not but . . . I’m not devastated. And I guess what I want is to find someone that I would be devastated to say goodbye to, you know? But if I didn’t know that about Oscar until recently, how will I know that about someone else?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “You know what, David? You have a big old heart in there.” Patrick rests his hand on David’s chest. “There it is. Beating away. And you might just have to trust it.”

David sniffles and rolls his eyes, but he can’t keep the smile from tickling at the corners of his mouth.

“So distract me from my failures and tell me more about this runaway groom situation,” David says. And Patrick does. Patrick has had a test audience of sorts with Tim, so he knows where the best worst parts of the story are, and he leans into them. David snorts and laughs on cue, and acts appropriately sympathetic on cue, too. It’s nice, actually, talking about it with him now that enough time has passed to pull the comedy out of the tragedy. 

David tells him about a few of his past relationships too. About a birthday clown and one or two of the artists he showcased at his gallery. David pulls the comedy out of the tragedy too, but Patrick pushes on the stories a little to make sure he’s getting the full picture. It’s a skill he’s picked up from Tim, making it safe to tell the part of the story that still hurts alongside the part that no longer does.

Before they realize it, the light through the window changes from the cold blue glow of the parking lot to the warm pinks and yellows of dawn and their alarms alert them that it would be time to wake up if they had ever gone to sleep.

David turns to silence his phone and when he looks back, his eyes are damp again. They’ve been talking all night and still it looks like there is a pileup of unsaid things written in his quiet gaze. Patrick should get up before he does something stupid like telling David any of the unsaid things he’s been carrying around. 

“We should get ready,” David says, reading his mind.

So they get ready and Patrick lets the pressures of the day take over the space in his brain that has realized he might have choices where David is concerned. 

He pays way too much for coffee and then way too much for car repair. And then they make their way to the last few vendors with only minor delays before turning back toward home. Their journey home is soundtracked by Joy Division and Adele and Sia and Mariah and David sings along to most of it. He gives Patrick a side eye when The Clash starts belting “Train in Vain” again as the disc starts over, but he sings along with that too. They share a fresh bag of licorice Patrick purchased for the way home and don’t talk much except about work. 

Patrick drops David off, getting out of the car to open the trunk for him. David taps his fingers against the roof of the car for a minute and then looks at Patrick with a level of intensity that’s a lot, even for him. He pulls Patrick into a hug. Patrick is surprised, but manages to get his arms around him and squeeze back. David’s breath is hot on his neck and his arms are like a vice and Patrick can smell the Rose Apothecary shampoo in his hair. And even though he spent part of the night holding David while he cried, it feels different holding in him in the low-angled, late-afternoon sun. Immersive.

“Want to come in? I could make you dinner?” David asks against his neck.

“Since when do you make dinner?” It comes out muffled, Patrick’s chin pinned against David’s shoulder.

“Since Oscar,” David says, managing a little shrug in their tight hold. 

That pulls Patrick out of it quickly, and he lets go and steps back. “Thanks. I-I’m exhausted. I think I’m just going to go home and sleep.” He’d just texted as much to Tim when they parked. 

“Okay.”

“Rain check?”

“Sure. Goodnight, Patrick.”

“‘Night.”

When he pulls up in front of his building, Tim is sitting on the front step with a handful of wildflowers and a bag of take-out. The sharp lines of his face rearrange into a soft, bright smile when Patrick gets out of his car. 

“What’s this?” Patrick asks as he steps into his arms. “I thought you had your book club tonight.”

“Oh, yeah. I, um. Well. These are for you.”

“Thank you,” Patrick says, searching him. 

“I find that I missed you, and that I’m dealing with a bit of jealousy, and I’m quite displeased.”

“You’re displeased I went on the trip?” Patrick says.

“No! Displeased to be jealous. In point of fact, I find it deeply unsettling. It makes me feel needy and—anyway. Please take these flowers as a token of my undying affection for you and—No. Don’t do that with your eyes like this is sweet. I assure you it is very much not.”

“Oh it’s not. For one thing, these flowers are _literally_ dying now.”

“Should I take the food and go then?” Tim asks. 

“Mmm, no,” Patrick says and kisses him. “Come in. Have dinner with me.” So he does.

During dinner, Patrick tells him about the trip and Tim laughs at the right places and asks the right questions and Patrick realizes he made his choice the second he followed Tim into his tent, knowing already that there was potential for that night to build to this one.

“I was thinking I should give you a key to my place. Is that too . . . I don’t know, domestic for you?”

Tim tips his head and his smile grows impossibly broader. “Do I get a drawer too?” he teases, but his voice wavers and gives him away. 

“Yeah. Maybe even a table on your side of the bed.”

“My side of the bed,” Tim echoes. He kisses Patrick once and then again, like he’s making up for lost time even though it’s only been two days. “That all sounds really nice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RA VENDOR ROAD TRIP 2020  
> To: David and his Feelings  
> From: Patrick and his Shitty Car Stereo 
> 
> Train in Vain (The Clash)  
> Since U Been Gone (Kelly Clarkson)  
> Good As Hell (Lizzo)  
> Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley)  
> Survivor (Destiny’s Child)  
> Ex-Factor (Lauryn Hill)  
> Bye Bye Bye (N’Sync)  
> Don’t Speak (No Doubt)  
> Shake it Off (Mariah Carey)  
> Tonight I’m Getting Over You (Carley Rae Jepsen)  
> Stay (Rihanna)  
> Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)  
> Someone Like You (Adele)  
> Elastic Heart (Sia)  
> Just Someone I Used to Know (Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner)  
> How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Al Green)  
> Believe (Cher)
> 
> Likerealpeopledo deserves a lot of credit for helping me put this list together.


	6. 2021

“David?” Patrick calls when he returns from the bank, locking the front door behind him. 

“Back here!” David calls from the back room.

“Okay so. I got all the paperwork for the loan and—oh hey,” Patrick says, surprised to find Tim in the back too. He stands up from the couch and greets Patrick with a soft kiss on the cheek. 

“You forgot your lunch and David said you should be back any minute so I thought I would wait.”

“So you two have just been . . . talking.” Patrick tries not to sound worried but probably fails.

“Yes. I invited David to come on the hike we’re planning next weekend.”

“And I said absolutely not.”

“So I promised cheese.”

“And I said I would think about it.”

This vaudevillian back-and-forth surprises all of them, producing a trio of awkward smiles. Since helping to plan Patrick’s pretend-it’s-still-a-surprise birthday party last week, Tim has been making an effort to spend more time with David. Patrick suspects he’s trying to shine a flashlight on Patrick and David’s friendship, to remind himself that it’s not scary and completely separate from what he and Patrick have together. As odd as it is to find them in the back room together, Patrick doesn’t mind it, or the accompanying sense that Tim is invested, investing, more deeply now. 

“And now I have to go or I’m going to be late for work,” Tim says. “Walk me out?”

Patrick discards his bag and padfolio on the table and follows him to the front. 

“You forgot this too,” Tim says with a soft kiss. “Hi. And goodbye,” he adds with a kiss that is much less soft. 

“I had to leave early to meet with the lender in Elmdale and didn’t want to wake you,” Patrick says, and Tim’s mouth is right there and the store is closed and David is in the back so there’s really no reason not to keep kissing it. 

“I have to go.” Tim stops them before they can get too carried away, Patrick’s face sandwiched between his hands. He kisses him one more time with a shy smile. “Can I take you to dinner tonight?”

“Sure,” Patrick says, surprised. Between evening events at the store, the baseball team, and the various groups and clubs Tim is involved with, spontaneous dinners don’t happen very often. 

“Good. I’ll pick you up after work.” Patrick nods and Tim kisses him goodbye for real before he leaves, the bell ringing cheerfully after him. 

Patrick returns to the back to find David looking at their copy of the paperwork Patrick has just brought back from the bank. “So as long as we bring cheese, you’re coming hiking next weekend?”

“Oh, no, definitely not. I would need a true act of subterfuge and someone worth following up a mountain. I can get cheese on the couch at sea level.”

“I see,” Patrick says. “So what were you two talking about?”

“Oh, he really just got here,” David says. Patrick is setting up his laptop to fill him in on his morning when David speaks again, his voice very quiet. “So you two are getting an apartment together.”

Patrick is focused intently on inserting the cord for the power supply into the port. “Yeah. Uh, looking anyway.” 

Tim must have told him. Must have assumed Patrick already did. Which makes sense since they’ve been looking for a month. Patrick wasn’t sure how to say it, or what to say to the inevitable follow-ups. “Well that’s a big step.” Like that one. David sits down next to him at the table where his laptop is still waiting for his password.

“Yeah,” Patrick says, trying to sound normal. 

“You seem very excited,” David says, sarcasm and softness filling in the cracks in Patrick’s calm. He picks up the stack of papers in front of him and taps it on the table to square the edges.

“I’ve never lived with anyone but Rachel. And it wasn’t a great experience,” Patrick admits to the smudge on the wall next to the table.

“Mmm,” David says, and his eyebrows say the rest. Patrick is being an idiot. When your boyfriend asks you to move in with them, you do it. Then he pauses and puts down the papers, looking at Patrick very seriously. “He really likes you, Patrick.”

“Oh. Yeah. I, uh, really like him too.”

“Hmm,” David says, and smiles kindly. Most of the time Patrick can tell what he’s thinking, but lately he has been making a face that Patrick can’t interpret. The closest he can come is wistful, but that’s not even half of the shine of his eyes and the crooked set of his mouth.

“Well, I got what we needed from the bank, so we can start looking for potential locations. But in the meantime, let me show you something.” Patrick logs in to his laptop and pulls up the document he’s been working on. David leans in, close enough that Patrick can smell the breath mint he just put in his mouth. “You know how we’ve been collecting zip codes? I took them, along with addresses from all the online orders and regular customers in the system, and mapped them with a scatter plot. And I think there’s a radius where people are close enough that they don’t place regular orders on the website, but far enough that they don’t come in that often either. If we put the new store somewhere in this band . . .”—Patrick gestures at the area on the map with the heavy red outline—“then I think we have the best chance of pulling in new business or more frequent business from existing customers.”

David glances at the map. The outlined section encompasses Elm Valley and Maple Ridge, two areas they already talked about looking.

“This, uh, scatter-map . . . is this an actual thing or a Patrick-has-a-data-kink thing?” David asks. 

Patrick turns and shrugs. “Both? Is this an actual objection or a David-can’t-admit-he-loves-making-measured-and-careful-business-decisions objection?”

David’s smile comes too easy now for him to tuck it in. “So what do we do? Tell Ray we want to stick to this area?”

“I think we should start here at least. And I’d like to start the hiring process now for managers so we can train them here at this store. And we should do some market research about competitors.”

“Okay, so what would that look like, schedulewise? Do you think we could get something set up before the holidays?” Patrick is staring but he can’t help it. “What?! Did I say something wrong?”

Patrick looks back down at his keyboard. 

“No. Sorry. That’s—You’re right. The schedule should be our next step.” 

Patrick shouldn’t really be surprised anymore. Since breaking up with Oscar, David has become heavily invested in the inner workings of the store. He spent late nights with Patrick going over the quarterly tax filings and annual reports. He went with Patrick to a seminar on building a better business, and came back from it armed with a plan to open the new location, mood board to follow. He coerced Patrick to do a brainstorming exercise with him that resulted in two new product lines and has been networking with other local businesses to carry smaller selections of their products. 

David doesn’t even gloat about being right. He just opens the calendar on his phone and lays it beside the leather-bound notebook where he still does most of his thinking. Then he starts drafting out the next few weeks. It’s still nonlinear, with notes in the margins and arrows across pages and key things circled and starred with no clear system for whether a circle or a star is a higher priority. He takes a break to doodle the Rose logo while they discuss the length of lease they should look for before going back to his scribbling. Patrick thinks that this David would probably never leave him a series of maniacally brilliant voicemails, and yet he reminds him every day of the one who did.

* * *

By the time he sits down with Tim in a small corner booth in a new restaurant in Elmdale, Tim’s knee pushing pleasantly into his thigh, Patrick is wondering if perhaps this is not a normal date. Tim washed his car between the morning and picking Patrick up. He even deep-cleaned the interior, long succumbed to the grime of Tim’s life outdoors. Tim is wearing clothes left over from his publishing days, which he only tends to dig out of the closet on special occasions. Patrick has learned to recognize the rich fabrics and textures and colors from that part of his life. Sometimes it’s still a surprise to see him in those clothes, a reminder that he was once as at home in the crush of central London as he is alone in the woods of Ontario.

They talk over dinner. Tim orders a good bottle of wine and steals a bite of his butternut squash risotto and then another one. Between the low lighting in the restaurant and the emerald color of his suede motorcycle jacket, his eyes look like deep green seas. Patrick loves him when he’s in a crowd, the way he feeds off its energy, but this is his favorite version of Tim. Intent and attentive, and deeply content as just the two of them. 

After dinner, Patrick is expecting the bill. A piece of cake arrives instead. There’s no fanfare from the wait staff—this is not that kind of place—but the server lights a tall candle and disappears again. 

“What’s this?” Patrick asks.

“I know David has the whole surprise party he plans for you every year, but I wanted to have a celebration just for us. And well, to actually surprise you. So—” Tim hands him his wine glass and reaches for his own. “Cheers to being surprised by whatever the next year brings.”

“Cheers,” Patrick says, and he’s not sure what his face is doing but he feels like he has about thirty things he wants to say and no idea how to say them.

That night, when they get back to Patrick’s apartment, Patrick tries to tell him. He tries to tell him with his lips against his skin, with his hands in his hair, with his legs hitched over his hips, with his arms holding him close, and finally whispering quietly in his ear until he’s sure he’s heard everything he wants to say. The ways he loves him, the offers he wants to make, the things he wishes he was better at, the silence between filled with feelings he knows he still needs to find the words for.

They clean up and settle in to read before they go to sleep. He’s having a hard time getting into the latest selection on the list Tim made for him so he rests his head on Tim’s shoulder and scans his book instead. “This was a great birthday, even if it was a week late,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to Tim’s neck.

“Not my fault your business partner reserved your actual birthday until the end of time since before I came along.”

“He’s my best friend,” Patrick corrects gently. 

Tim makes a _humph_ sound. “I know he is.”

“Wait . . . so was this a passive-aggressive surprise birthday celebration?” Patrick asks, grinning. Tim wiggles out from underneath him and adjusts so they are both on their sides facing each other. Patrick kisses his mouth to give it a break from trying so very hard to be serious. 

“Listen, do you want a boyfriend who is perfect, or will you settle for one who is trying very hard?” Tim asks. 

“I want whichever one you are.” Patrick twists a strand of his hair in his finger to move it out of his eyes.

“I’m truly not bothered by the birthday party. I understand it’s quite special for you both. And I want you to have things that are special for both of you. Even things that don’t include me. But . . . Patrick if this keeps going as it is, I want to reserve parts of your life too. Just for us.”

Patrick considers listing all the things he has reserved for Tim. But he knows Tim knows what they are, knows Tim trusts what they have. And Patrick knows that’s not what Tim is talking about. So he says, “I want that too,” and leaves it at that. 

The next morning, Tim is scrolling apartment listings on his phone when Patrick wakes up.

“Wow, have we seen that one?” Patrick asks as Tim scrolls through pictures of an apartment with wood floors and a nice kitchen.

“Um no. This one’s in Elm Glen.” 

“Oh,” Patrick says. “That’s a long commute for me.”

“Schitt’s Creek is forty minutes from work for me,” Tim says, as though Patrick doesn’t know. It’s the first time he’s said anything about looking farther away than Elmdale. “And we’ve been having trouble finding a place we both like. Maybe if we look farther out, we’ll have more choices.”

Patrick watches silently as Tim scrolls through the pictures and hears the quiet promise from the night before to reserve things just for them playing through his head. The idea of moving to a new town, even one so close to this one, makes him feel like his life is moving forward without giving him time to get his seatbelt properly fastened.

* * *

Over a three-month span of time, a number of things happen so closely together and in such a well-ordered sequence that Patrick is lulled into thinking that the resulting decisions are blessed by the earnest and supportive push of fate. 

A storefront opens up right on the main commercial strip in Elm Valley. The interior is already warm grays and clean whites and polished wood. It used to be a pharmacy and still has a wall of built-in antique metal and glass cabinets and a serviceable back room already outfitted with storage shelves. It even has a large room separated by a pair of sliding doors that they can use for seasonal wares or events. It meets all their requirements, as well as being located in an improvement zone, which opens up additional grants to get it started. The lease includes a bright one-bedroom on the second floor, which they can sublease if they want, providing additional income. 

They schedule interviews for managers to oversee the new store, but the only one that is even remotely acceptable to both of them quits after two days of merchandising training with David. 

Patrick is pretty sure either he or Tim has rejected every single available one-bedroom apartment in and around Schitt’s Creek and they are running out of time before Patrick has to either move or renew his current lease. Patrick takes Tim to check out the new store and they go upstairs just for fun. But then they are standing in the little apartment, all wood floors and white brick fireplace and built-in shelves for books and records and Tim asks casually what the rent is.

Patrick tells him and Tim emits a low whistle. The amount of space for the price is much better than anything they’ve looked at. It’s forty minutes from Schitt’s Creek and seven blocks from Backcountry Equipment Co-op where Tim works.

Just like that, it seems like several dilemmas resolve themselves at once. 

“Maybe we just hire another employee and I’ll manage this location.” Patrick lets his idea float into the room one day as he assembles a shelving unit while David hooks up the new cash register. It’s almost November, and if they don’t open soon, they will miss the holiday shopping season. They’ve already talked about how one of them will have to be on hand most of the holiday anyway to make sure things run smoothly. 

David sets down the tablet they plan to use for card transactions and Patrick can see the effort it takes him to school his face into a neutral expression.

“If you managed this location you would have to be here instead of at our store,” David says, and they both hear it. Our store. And now this store. Which . . . is theirs too, even if it doesn’t quite feel that way yet.

“I would still come back and forth. It’s probably better for the partners to have a presence at both stores anyway.”

“Mmhmm,” David says, but he means, “I hate this and I’ll get back to you on why.” So Patrick might as well get it all out. 

“Plus Tim and I were thinking we could take the upstairs unit. We wouldn’t have to find a reliable tenant.”

David nods a few times with his lips pressed together, staring at the wall. “Can I think about it?”

“Sure,” Patrick says. He feels like he needs to do something, say something, because this feels like a lot bigger change than it did when he was talking about it with Tim. But he isn’t sure what to say, so he just squeezes David’s forearm in what he hopes is a comforting manner and goes into the back for a different screwdriver. 

Ten minutes later, David doesn’t look up from the wires and cords and plugs when he says, “I think you should do it.”

* * *

It doesn’t feel that different at first. They’ve both worked their share of days alone, and David is at the new location a lot to help set up. The labeling and stocking and fussing and adjusting all feel eerily similar. Some things are different, like the hour-long FaceTime session David has with Marcy Brewer, showing her around the new place. He hands her off to Patrick who takes her upstairs to see the apartment. Tim gets back from work and says hi, and Patrick is glad that this time he can share all of this with them. His love and his business and his friendships. 

Lupe will be starting in a week, which is also different. Patrick likes her so far from the interviews and training but it’s hard to imagine spending long days and slow hours with a total stranger instead of his friend and partner. 

Patrick is enjoying being involved in some of the creative decisions too. After David has a frustrating series of phone calls with a vendor who shipped their product for the new store to the original store by accident, Patrick suggests they come up with a name for the new location to avoid further confusion. 

"What if we call it Rose Apothecary West? I feel like that's still the appropriate amount of pretentiousness,” Patrick suggests. 

David furrows his brow as he thinks. "Mmhmm, sure. Let me just sketch _that_ logo."

David scratches at a piece of paper with the ball-point pen by the cash and hands it to Patrick. 

"What is this?" Patrick asks.

"That is a sushi roll with the new store initials over it. R-A-W."

“Okay how about Rose Apothecary Elm Valley,” Patrick tries. David doodles on that for a bit and then agrees. 

“Just for orders and shipments though. Rose Apothecary for everything else.” 

Patrick sets up the entire back shelf of kitchenware and cooking tools while David is on a vendor run. He comes back and freezes as he stares at the display. His back is to Patrick but Patrick can see he’s smiling in the tilt of his head and the way his shoulders relax. He shuffles a few of the cutting boards around as he murmurs about margin on the thicker cheese boards and then picks up where he left off on the bath salts, leaving the rest of Patrick’s arrangement as-is. 

On a cold but sunny Friday afternoon, Patrick tucks the new business license into a frame and hands it to David. “I know you’re going for a little different aesthetic at this location but I thought we should keep a few things the same,” he says. David takes it and runs his fingers around the metallic silver with a fond smile. 

“I never did understand why you came back after I told you that your thoughtful gesture was too corporate for my brand,” David says. And Patrick considers telling him everything in the middle of this new store that isn’t quite yet their store. He’s so happy with Tim, and David has started dating again—although nothing serious from what Patrick has heard. Maybe they could laugh about it, how Patrick was so enamored with David that he dropped everything else in order to catch him, in hopes that David’s boldness was a little bit contagious. 

“I guess I just knew there was something special about you, David Rose,” Patrick says instead. “And look where we are. Looks like I was correct. As usual.” 

Patrick thinks it’s very cute that David still thinks rolling his eyes hides how delighted he is about any given thing.

The business license isn’t the only thing they get to do again.

“As I recall the soft launch turned somewhat firm,” Patrick says as they argue over how they should handle the opening. David groans with clenched fists and takes a lap around the table in the center of the sales floor, possibly to keep from strangling him. 

“I believe you also said we would never have to talk about this again,” David says. 

“I’m not opposed to the soft launch,” Patrick says. “But I think we still need to do some advertising to make sure we’re on people’s radars for holiday shopping. Which can be a separate thing.”

“Fine. I can live with that. Either way, please help me remember to save the receipt from the first sale. I meant to save the first receipt at our store and I forgot.” They’ve both given in by now. The first one is _our store_. This one is the new store, unclaimed as yet.

It’s been so long, Patrick almost forgot he kept that receipt, tucked out of sight in the back of his closet. In those first few weeks, he thought maybe if things didn’t work out with Oscar, he would find a time to give it to David and tell him how he felt. Now it’s upstairs in a box somewhere of things he hasn’t needed to unpack. He should just give it to him anyway, probably. 

Tim is always encouraging Patrick to act instead of waiting for the stars to align. In fact Tim pretty intentionally yanks the stars into place when he can. It’s not like this is a big romantic gesture anymore. It wouldn’t mean what it used to mean.

* * *

The problem with moving into the new store at the same time as he moves into the apartment upstairs is that Patrick doesn’t have a place where he can settle. Tim seems to feel the same way, restlessly picking through boxes for a favorite book or a misplaced sweater. Tim has to shuffle and rearrange things a dozen times before he finds the right place, so that Patrick is still searching for the spatula and the coffee filters and his book on data analytics several days after those items are first unpacked.

He comes home on a Tuesday afternoon to another stack of papers in the corner of the table where the first stack, which he valiantly ignored, landed the week before. This one is about half as high, but if the first is any indication, this stack will grow until it, too, must breed and multiply. Which is how he learns that Tim is someone who makes piles. 

This stack is primarily old tax records, and it dissipates quickly into a file box. Once the piles have arrived though, there seems to be no stopping them. Even as they slowly put things away, the piles continue to form. Along with the piles come stacks of books and pictures of Tim’s friends and family. It’s an odd feeling, to come home to objects and photos and papers that are not from his life, not part of his memory. Even when he lived with Rachel, all of the detritus of their separate lives came from shared experiences. 

With planning the soft launch and the holiday retail push, Patrick doesn’t have enough attention to spare. So he tries to ignore the fact that in a matter of months he’s gone from everything in his life being safe and comfortable and familiar to everything feeling discombobulated and shifted out of place.

The Tuesday before the opening, Patrick loses some of his paperwork for the event permit under one of Tim’s stacks and it takes the two of them thirty minutes of searching to uncover it. The fight is short but brutal, volleys and recriminations as tempers flare. Patrick needs order, Tim thrives on chaos, and they usually enjoy pulling each other toward the middle from their separate corners. They are brawling in the center of the ring now.

When it’s clear that enough has been said to keep tempers up for awhile, Tim disappears to the bedroom and Patrick decides to go for a walk. He’s tying on his shoes when Tim emerges with his rain jacket. 

“Where are you going?” Tim asks. 

“Going for a walk to calm down,” Patrick grumbles. “Where are you going?”

Tim laughs and kneels in front of Patrick as he finishes lacing up his shoe. “I was about to walk to calm down.” He blinks slowly, his lashes dark on his face, and Patrick remembers the first time he looked at him like this, kneeling in front of him over this very pair of shoes. 

“Can I join you then?” Patrick asks. He still sounds grumpy. He still _is_ grumpy. But Tim smiles up at him and nods. 

They walk in the cold November drizzle and Tim tells him he needs to be able to sprawl out sometimes. Then he elbows Patrick and says, “I won’t make you tell me what you need but if you don’t, I expect I will get my way from here on out.”

It’s so soft and teasing but at least part of him means it, so Patrick tries his best to explain what he needs. And Tim tells him he’ll try too, to give it to him. And when they get back he shrugs out of his jacket and starts picking up the scatter of his things on the kitchen counter, which is one of the zones they agreed would stay clear. Tim gets out the cleaner and a towel and wipes down the cleared surface which is enough to make Patrick abandon the box of albums he’s unpacking. 

Tim is surprised at first when Patrick wraps around him from behind but he puts down the cleaning supplies and fits his arms and hands over Patrick’s. 

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Me too,” Patrick says into his back.

* * *

The soft launch goes even better than the first one, helped by the large number of customers who were already familiar with Rose Apothecary. David mills around upselling products like only he can. Patrick hears Tim talking to someone he knows, possibly from work, while he’s ringing up Jocelyn and Roland who came and bought tea just to be supportive. 

“My partner owns this store, actually. We live upstairs,” he says. Patrick looks over and meets his eye, and Tim smiles warmly at him. 

When the event is over, Tim helps clean up but excuses himself to give David and Patrick a little time to debrief alone. They didn’t get to do that after the first opening; Oscar stuck around until David was ready to go and Patrick wasn’t sure how to ask him to leave.

“Well, this was a success,” David says. 

“I would say so, yeah,” Patrick says. “And I won’t point out we’d be twenty-five percent richer without the discount.”

“Except that’s exactly what you just did, so.” David grins and then looks around again.

It occurs to Patrick that he doesn’t know when he’ll see him again at work, and that he’s not prepared for that. It feels like one week they were unpacking the first box of hand cream and the next the store was open. 

“I should go,” David says, looking around again. “We should have a regular lunch meeting or something once a week.”

“Mmm.” Patrick pushes it through his throat. “Maybe two. At least. And we’ll text and call each other. And we’ll still hang out. I mean it doesn’t have to be about the store.”

David nods with his whole upper body at the same time he folds himself around Patrick in a tight hug. 

“Congratulations, man,” Patrick says, feeling the softness of David’s sweater under his chin where it hooks over his shoulder.

“Mmhmm,” David says and then he’s pulling away and walking toward the door.

* * *

Patrick makes a point to get back to Schitt’s Creek at least once a week, and David comes to Elm Valley at least once a week, and the only thing, the _only_ thing that makes it bearable is that Tim is around more to fill the time he used to spend with David. And Lupe is great. Delightful. But he still misses David more than he thought possible. 

Patrick takes the Rose Apothecary tote bag into the café with him the Friday after the opening for the first of what he hopes will be their weekly lunches. They have a lot to talk about and the conversation doesn’t really lead naturally to the opening like he wants it to, so he just sets the bag on the table between them and pushes it toward David.

“I have something for you,” Patrick says. 

David reaches inside and pulls out the framed receipt from the opening of Rose Apothecary Elm Valley. 

“You framed it,” he says. 

“You said you wanted to keep it. Anyway it’s special glass so it won’t fade.” Patrick shrugs. And then he decides maybe it’s time to just drag some of the stars into alignment. “There’s something else.”

David reaches in the bag and pulls out the other receipt, the one Patrick has been holding onto for five years. 

David’s face goes impossibly soft and hard at once, like he’s trying not to cry. “What is this?” 

“It’s nothing,” Patrick says. “It’s just the receipt from our first sale at the store. Our store. I always thought I would give it to you and then I don’t know. I just didn’t and I wasn’t really sure what to do with it so . . .” 

He probably should have thought longer and harder about how he would explain this. David doesn’t look like he cares about the explanation though. 

“And so you just kept it,” he finishes, which is accurate enough so Patrick nods. David is still staring at the frame. “Um. This is not nothing. So thank you.”

Patrick smiles at him and he smiles back and then Twyla brings their food and saves him from having to come up with more to say. 

Stevie shows up a minute later. “Oh, good, just in time,” she says, helping herself to a mozzarella stick as she sits down, nudging David over in the booth. 

“Excuse me, this is a business meeting,” he says, tucking the frames carefully back in the bag and setting them at his side. 

“Yes, if I would have known you were coming I would have printed you an agenda,” Patrick says.

“Oh I’m just here for the food,” Stevie says, waving him off and taking another mozzarella stick. 

The bag of framed receipts stays safely tucked at David’s side. Patrick feels good, letting go of this thing he’s been holding on to. And looking across the table at his two closest friends arguing about whether or not Stevie should even be here, he realizes he doesn’t have to let go of anything at all.


	7. 2022

“How many people are coming to this anyway?” Tim asks, eyeing the four trays of jello shots filling the lower shelf of the fridge as he plucks his water bottle out of the door.

“Thirty to forty? Somewhere in there.”

“And why am I dressed like this again?” Tim gestures at his sweatpants and T-shirt.

“Because the theme of the party is good old-fashioned high school slumber party. And you rejected the matching pajamas idea.”

“Ah yes. I believe what I said is that I did not wear pajamas to parties when I was in school. I was confused by the premise. It wasn’t about the matching.”

“How about this?” Patrick says, pausing to kiss the back of his neck as he passes behind him. “You can wear whatever you want, but everyone else will be in pajamas.”

“You know when I was growing up, the chief appeal of a party like this was getting sloshed on your parents’ dime. Now that it’s my money supplying the booze, that is somewhat less appealing.”

“Hey,” Patrick says, turning back and tugging him closer. “Everything okay?” 

“Yes. Sorry. Just a bit in my head.” Tim has been a little off tonight. All day really, if he thinks back. He’s been off a lot lately, but Patrick doesn’t know if that’s new, or just new to him now that they’re together more. Even though he doesn’t want Tim feeling off, he also appreciates that Tim lets himself do this sometimes now, lets himself be a little less perfect all the time and a little less consciously imperfect, too.

“Okay,” Patrick says. He kisses him again for good measure before he goes to unwrap the napkins and plastic cups. 

“I invited a friend from my book club, by the way.”

“Good. I want to meet more of your friends.” Patrick smiles and Tim smiles back.

“Mmm, right. Actually I thought I might introduce her to David.”

“Does she—Oh,” Patrick says, realizing belatedly what he means by “introduce.”

“Is that . . . okay with you?” Tim asks carefully.

“Of course.” He says it too quickly but Tim chooses not to notice. “I mean it doesn’t matter to me. It’s David who will be upset with you.” It’s a good recovery; they both know David well enough to picture his horrified reaction. “But I look forward to seeing how you do with that.”

“I’m not scared of him, but should he challenge me to a duel, I hope you’ll be my second and remember me kindly if it comes to it.”

“Always,” Patrick says. Tim makes a theatrical bow of thanks and takes the cups to position them by the punch.

It’s been six months since they moved and Patrick is finally starting to feel settled. The new store got enough of a bounce from the opening and holiday shopping to push them through the winter lull. Now that spring has arrived, to say things are thriving might be a bit generous, but it’s doing well. Between the store and the holidays and unpacking and rearranging, this housewarming party is a tad belated. But it’s a good excuse to have friends over anyway and see if they can try to blend their friend groups a little.

Before long, their apartment is filled with conversations and laughter. David and Stevie arrive about a half hour after the first guest.

“David,” Tim says, pulling him into their standard greeting, a one-armed half-hug. “I like the jumper. Glad to see I’m not the only one who rejected sleepwear.”

David looks down in surprise—to him sweaters are all-day and all-night apparel—and says, “Mmhmm. Personally, I would have gone with a masquerade but I’m just here to be the supportive business partner tonight.”

Twyla pulls David and Stevie toward their other mutual friends by the fireplace and Patrick pours Tim and himself another round. There are a few separate conversations underway in the living room and a circle of Tim’s work friends playing tipsy Truth or Dare at the dining table. Tim sidles up to Patrick and takes his cup. 

“I still don’t understand the pajamas, but the bisexual in me is not complaining,” Tim says, scanning the party.

“Good to know.” Tim is an equal-opportunity flirt—always has been—but it’s hard to muster any jealousy when his free hand is tucked into the waistband of Patrick’s pants, warm against the base of his spine. He rests his head on Tim’s shoulder and scans across the party. It’s going well, he thinks. People are having a good time.

When a new arrival emerges from the front hall, Tim springs to life. “Ooh, that’ll be Maggie. Let the matchmaking begin.”

“ _That’s_ the person you wanted to introduce to David?” Patrick asks, trying to hold in a laugh.

“Yes?”

“Such a good choice, babe,” Patrick says, and then he buries his laughter in a kiss. 

“Babe? You only call me that when—What am I missing? Do you know her?”

“Oh I do. I’m excited for you to introduce them.” 

Tim looks highly suspicious, which makes Patrick feel a little bad, but not enough to tell him why this is the worst idea he’s ever had.

Tim greets his special guest with a hug and, to his credit, manages to nudge her fairly organically toward the game of Never Have I Ever by the fireplace. Then he ever so tactfully inserts himself between David and Stevie. 

“No, I didn’t actually deliver pizza. I _pretended_ to deliver pizza, which is different!” David insists, refusing to drink.

David’s grin freezes as Tim and Maggie approach. “Oh my god,” he says.

“David? Wow, it’s been awhile. Looks like the rash cleared up.” Her face is carefully neutral but her voice is snarky.

David scrunches his face and says, “Yes it did, thanks so much.”

Patrick joins them as she fills Tim in on the story, recounting the incident where David blamed her lotion for an outbreak later traced to poison oak hand-selected by Mr. Rose for the motel. David does his best to argue his side of things and Patrick and Tim tune out, letting the two of them dispute the details about David’s call with Maggie’s business manager, Brenda. Maggie is tall with strong shoulders accentuated by a tattoo sleeve of gothic architecture forms and shapes. It’s colorful, beautiful really, and so is she. 

“So you set me up then?” Tim asks, leaning into Patrick.

“Oh no. I believe it was you who orchestrated the set-up.” There’s just enough apology in his voice to soften Tim’s irritation.

“Let’s play Spin the Bottle before you lot are too drunk to remember who you’ve kissed,” Tim says to everyone within earshot. 

A circle forms and most of the kissing is innocent and quick. Twyla kisses Stevie with jello shot-fueled enthusiasm and then Stevie’s spin points to Patrick. Stevie leans over Tim who is sitting between them and wiggles her eyebrows as she kisses Patrick playfully and platonically before retreating to her spot. She smells nice and her lips are soft and Patrick doesn’t really like or dislike kissing her. It’s just a kiss. Just a game.

“I guess it’s my turn,” Patrick says, reaching to spin the bottle.

When it lands on David, Patrick hopes the room only pauses in his imagination. Because it seems to stand still, every noise, every movement falling away around him. 

“Go crazy, love,” Tim murmurs next to him, after what feels like an hour. Patrick hazards a glance but his face is calm like maybe he means it. It’s just a kiss. Just a game.

As Patrick crawls across the circle, he’s not sure what he’s going to do. He is probably not going to kiss David. Not on the lips anyway. Not in front of . . . everyone. He could though. It’s just a kiss. Just a game.

But David is looking at him like he _is_ going to kiss him and that’s . . . It’s a face Patrick used to spend all day and all night wondering about. What would David look like if Patrick found the courage to kiss him? What would that moment be like between when he figured out what was coming and when it finally came? Would his mouth soften or tense in anticipation? Would he lean in or wait for Patrick to close the distance? Would his eyes stay on Patrick’s or drop away? They are locked to Patrick’s now, lit with anticipation.

Patrick finally reaches him. He’s still not sure if it’s braver to find out the answers to all of his questions, or to continue on like he didn’t get the chance. David’s eyes are intent and his shoulders tense but his mouth is soft and slightly open. He smells like leather and his evening stubble is rough as Patrick cradles his face in his hand to position it. It rasps against his lips as he kisses the broad plane of David’s cheek. Patrick is sure a few people groan but he only hears the soft hum of surprise low in David’s throat, vibrating against Patrick’s fingertips before his hand falls away. As Patrick retreats across the circle, David’s eyebrows furrow in the slightest of questions, and Patrick couldn’t answer them if he wanted to. So he leans into the pressure of Tim’s fingers scratching lightly against his shoulder blades and drops his gaze at last.

David reaches to the center of the circle for his spin, and Patrick suspects only someone as attuned to David as he is would see that he’s moving slowly. When it lands on Maggie, David shakes his hands in frustration. “You know what? Maybe we should just be done here.”

“C’mon David. Bygones and all that,” Maggie says, meeting him halfway. The kiss is a little off-center but they both sort of laugh and look away shyly afterwards. 

Tim elbows him with a “See!” Patrick still feels a little disoriented from the crawl across the circle so he just nods; he missed whatever he was supposed to see.

Maggie kisses Twyla next and since Twyla had the first spin they decide to break up the game in favor of Telephone. 

Tim mumbles something about finding his work friends as he stands up, so Patrick decides to refill the snacks and drinks. David plucks a plate off the stack and starts filling it up as Patrick tops off the bowls of chips. 

“So did Tim invite Maggie here specifically for me, or . . . ?”

“Be nice to him, okay?” Patrick pleads. “I don’t think he loved seeing his boyfriend kissing some other guy.”

“Some other guy?” David says with a flustered grin. “Wow, okay. Number one, that was barely a peck, and also—”

“Hey.” Patrick grips his shoulder as he searches for a change in subject. “I wonder what would’ve happened if we’d met in high school.” He should have searched harder.

“Hmm, well. I’m thinking you would have steered very clear of the candy-raver with the asymmetrical haircut.”

“Maybe,” Patrick says. Picturing them together, him in his baseball uniform with the too-long pants and David in bright colors with awful hair is actually kind of nice. “I like to think we would have been friends no matter when or where our paths crossed.”

David laughs without humor. “Trust me, I think our paths crossed at the right time. I was a different person back then.”

“You’re a different person now than when I met you,” Patrick argues. “And we’re still friends.”

“I’m a better person now.”

“Only occasionally,” Patrick says with a grin. David grins back and then Stevie and Maggie are calling him over to play Twister and he’s dragging his feet just enough to make it difficult for them. David seems a little more animated tonight, more like his old self. A little more feisty and a little less measured. Patrick should find more reasons to get him out, even though he insists he’s fine. With the move and the store, Patrick hasn’t been the greatest friend lately.

Patrick gets pulled into a game of beer pong and then Emma from the baseball team is asking if there’s more wine. And since one of the perks of living above his store is that he can restock the party without taking off his slippers, he sneaks downstairs. There’s rustling in the dark and then he sees them, Maggie on the counter with her legs around David whose lips are paused on her neck.

“David. Maggie.” Patrick says. He needs a joke. A silly comment. Anything that’s not staring pointedly at the floor. Because this is fine. Wildly unprofessional maybe, but fine. “Glad to see you managed to kiss and make up.” 

“Mmhmm,” David says, and then shushes Maggie when she snorts.

“I’ll pay for the wine in the morning,” he says in their general direction before heading back upstairs. 

He’s closing the door behind the last of their guests before he realizes David never came back up to say goodnight. He doesn’t have time to speculate though because something is up with Tim and Patrick is only sober enough for one crisis at a time. 

“Garbage,” Tim says, one of several mostly single-word utterances since the guests cleared out. When he comes back up, Patrick has most of the snacks put away.

“I feel like I should ask why you’re upset?” Patrick says. His tongue is thick like he’s speaking a foreign language. Prolonged knocking about with a sour expression and no explanation is generally Patrick’s operating mode, not Tim’s. Patrick can’t think of a time he’s had to guess or ask why Tim is in a mood.

“It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

“You have never once let me get away with that.” 

“I just . . . I used to host parties at my flat in London. Couple times a month. I had money back then. And a job that made people want my company. I didn’t think twice about paying for catering or opening another bottle of wine. I don’t miss it. That’s not what . . . Christ, this isn’t coming out how I want it to.”

Patrick leans over the island so he can take his hand, weaving their fingers together.

“Sasha, Martin, and Sonja . . . they used to work with me at the Co-op. They’ve found other jobs now and they were telling me all about the things they’re working on and I dunno. Jon is being a bastard again—has been ever since he came back from the Denali expedition—and I just wonder what I’m still doing there working for him? I used to be able to charge a party like this to a corporate account, and now I’m thinking about each bottle of wine that disappears in terms of how many miserable hours I’ll have to work to pay for it.”

Patrick should go around the island to him except then he’d have to let go of his hand and that seems like a bad idea, considering how hard Tim is gripping it. He’s been saying things lately that Patrick only strings together now. About how this is the longest he’s ever lived in one place. About how he never thought he would enjoy a long-term committed relationship the way he is now. About how his boss is miserable and paranoid and makes everyone around him miserable. About how he feels stuck there anyway. About how he wants to feel the way he used to feel at his old job. Like it mattered to someone. Like it mattered to his life.

“I think I need to just buckle down and start looking for a new job but I don’t—Patrick what if I can’t find something here?”

“W-well I’m sure you can find _something_.” Patrick feels like an idiot for not seeing this coming sooner, and now he’s trying to keep it from knocking him over.

“Something that suits me,” Tim clarifies. “Not a lot of use for my anthropology or publishing credentials around here.” 

“Tim. You’ll find something and . . . and if you don’t then we’ll deal with it then. Together. Okay?”

Tim nods with his eyes closed and his jaw clenched and Patrick thinks if this works out, if they find their way into a lifetime together, this night is going to mean something. It means something to him, to see Tim break open without trying to fix it immediately. To tell Patrick he has a problem and no solution. 

“Shit, you must think I’m mad.”

“Why would I think that?”

“We moved here because I wanted to be closer to work.”

“We moved here because this is the perfect location for my store and it came with this really nice apartment and I very much wanted to be surrounded by your piles and find your wet towel hanging over the foot of the bed on a daily basis.” Tim snorts and squeezes his hand. “I _was_ worried you were angry though.”

“Why? Did you do something I should be mad about?”

“Oh. Uh. I was just worried you were mad I kissed David. Or whatever.” It has the opposite effect on Tim’s scowl than he’s expecting, causing it to vanish into a quick, bright smile.

“It was hardly a kiss. But. I thank you for it.” His voice and face are quiet. “And I wasn’t mad. If anything I was mad the bottle never landed on me.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, and Tim’s tipping his head side-to-side the way he does when he wants to shake off a bad mood.

Patrick takes one of the empty bottles lined up for recycling and lays it flat on the kitchen island between them, catching Tim’s soft smile as he gives it a spin. It stops about thirty degrees to Tim’s right, but they’re alone now so it’s close enough.

“Just who I was hoping it would land on,” Patrick murmurs as he comes around the edge of the island. Tim watches him advance with uncharacteristic vulnerability, like he thinks maybe he’s in for a quick peck on the cheek too. But Patrick takes his face into his hands and steps close, as close as he can, and pulls him down into a kiss. Tim braces his hands against the counter behind them so he can lean into Patrick’s touch. The kisses are easy and chaste at first. Just a kiss. Just a game. Not _just_ a game, though. Tim’s tongue wets the surface of Patrick’s bottom lip before it presses in. Patrick’s tilts his hips up, an experiment. The results are conclusive and soon he’s nudging them toward the bedroom. 

Patrick can’t do much about Tim’s job or his boss, but he can make this, tonight, a little better.

He starts slowly and Tim doesn’t protest, his eyes light and trusting as Patrick removes their clothes and holds him, skin to skin, eager mouth to eager mouth, languid kisses alternating with more insistent ones.

Tim leans into his hands wherever they touch him, his voice a husk when he finally speaks. “Fuck me. Christ, fuck me, please.”

“Okay. Yeah. I want that," Patrick says against his chest. Tim doesn’t bottom very often, so Patrick takes his time with his fingers and then his cock. He tries to show Tim with his hands, with his mouth, that they've got this, that he's got him. Their pace builds until Patrick can’t hold it back, until he has too much to give to keep it from rushing out in a flood. Tim lets it crash over him over and over, clinging to Patrick with his hands, with his teeth, with his thighs. 

When Patrick goes to get a washcloth to clean them up, Tim holds him tighter, tangling their legs together. 

“No, stay,” he says. Patrick leans back into him, Tim’s face scratchy where it settles against his own. “I’ll stay too. I’ll find a way to stay.”

Patrick is too tired and too content to question it.

* * *

In the seven months since they opened, Patrick has adjusted to the new store. But it doesn’t change the way it feels to walk into their store in Schitt’s Creek. The familiar gold letters and black storefront glint at him from across the street, promising the comfort of a space he built with his hands, with his brain, with his friend; a space that feels steady and changes in ways that are always predictable and safe. He loves coming a few minutes early to their weekly meeting just so he can linger among the sand and stone palette in the first place he ever really felt at home.

Except today, through the windows, he can see Maggie standing across the counter from David and reaching for his hair as he bats her hand away. That feels kind of familiar too, David moving like he needs twice the space his body can actually fill, until he grabs Maggie’s hand and uses it to pull her to him, kissing her once and again. It’s all the more shocking because it’s not really that sexual. It’s the kind of kiss you give someone when you have established that there are a thousand types of kisses to choose from. 

Patrick waits until David returns her to her side of the counter before opening the door. 

“Hey,” he says, waving awkwardly.

“Hey,” they say in unison. 

“Nice day, isn’t it?” Maggie asks.

“Mmm, very,” David answers, and she glares at him. “What?! It is.”

“It is,” Patrick agrees. 

“I should go,” Maggie says, pressing her palm against David’s cheek in a move that feels bizarrely intimate and tender for all they are barely touching. “Good luck on your test tomorrow.”

“Test?” Patrick asks. “What test?”

David tips his head back in apparent agony, eyes closed, mouth turned down like the mask of tragedy. 

“You didn’t tell him?” she asks David. Patrick flails blindly in his head trying to guess what he might not have been told. Is he sick? Is something wrong?

“I’m just taking some night classes,” David says, which is not any of the possible explanations Patrick just thought of.

“I actually do have to go, in addition to feeling like I probably _should_ go. Call me later?” She waits until David nods and then levers up on the counter to reach his cheek with another kiss before she leaves.

She passes Gillian on the sidewalk, who has three teas from the café in a small cardboard tray. Patrick can tell by David’s face that this conversation should happen without the possibility of overhearing ears so they thank Gillian and take their tea into the back room. 

“So I guess I know why you wanted to discuss adding a hypoallergenic hand lotion,” Patrick says. 

“In my defense,” David starts, holding a finger in the air like he wants to shush Patrick but knows better. “It’s a need we discovered during the market research study that _you_ wanted, and she has the best local product around.”

“I know. That’s why we used to carry hers. And why did we stop, again?”

“Oh my god. I thought we were selling RA-branded plague. It’s not my fault that my dad is—”

“David.” He probably shouldn’t like the way David’s mouth clamps shut when he uses that exact tone of voice, but he does. “I trust you on the product. But carrying her product now that you’re in a relationship seems complicated.”

“Who said relationship? I’m too busy with classes for that. We’re just having fun.” Patrick doesn’t believe that any more than David does.

“Okay, we have to come back to the classes. But what happens if it stops being fun? What if she gets mad at you again and pulls her product? What if—”

“I know.” David closes his eyes and clamps his mouth between his hands, elbows resting on the table as he sits down. 

“Hey,” Patrick says. “I’m glad you’re having fun with someone.” There was something about the moment at the counter, something about the line of David’s body and the soft curve of his smile, that made Patrick’s heart ache for him. It’s been a long time since he’s seen David like that. He wants to be happy for him but signing her again as a vendor has his stomach churning uncomfortably.

“It’s not like I planned for it to happen like this, I just . . . It’s a great product.”

Patrick sighs and sits down across from him, setting his laptop bag on the table. “Okay. For the record, it would be helpful if we had had this conversation _before_ you started kissing a potential vendor in a darkened store. But. If I handle all the vendor stuff for her and we’re careful about the contract, maybe this can work.”

“Mmhmm,” David nods.

“Is that ‘mmhmm yes’ or ‘mmhmm I’ll think about it’ or . . . ?”

“Oh, well, it’s not up to me, right? That’s what you just said? So it’s ‘mmhmm, I understand you’re going to call her and talk it through.'” He leans onto one hip and pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps at the screen. Patrick’s phone lights up in front of him with her contact. “I’ll let her know she’ll be hearing from you.”

Patrick wants to strangle him but also he’s looking at him like he knows Patrick wants to strangle him. For some reason the little knowing, apologetic arc of his mouth eases the feeling considerably. Which is good because there’s still a big fucking elephant parked in the corner of the room.

“So you’re taking classes?”

“Um, yes? I’m . . .” David makes the same face he’s made about six times in the last thirty minutes, the one where he knows he has to say a thing he doesn’t want to say. “I’m going back for a business management degree.”

“Wait, what?” Patrick asks, because he doesn’t know what he expected but he has the overwhelming urge to pull at David’s face to make sure it’s not someone else sitting in front of him in a very elaborate David costume. Or maybe this is what David is doing this year instead of the surprise party. Some kind of long-con shock-and-awe situation and this is just the groundwork. “Okay, but . . . business school? I handle the business stuff. It’s like the first thing we decided.”

“I know.” David doesn’t speak for a long time, but his whole body is talking. The chair creaks as he crosses and uncrosses his legs and leans forward with his head in his hands and then back, tapping the side of the table.

“David I’m not . . . I don’t mean to tell you that you can’t do this if you want to. I think you’ll do great. I just didn’t know this was something you wanted.”

“I don’t know if I do,” David says. “I just started. I wanted to try it before telling you in case I hated it.”

“Do you? Hate it?”

“Shockingly no. I mean I think I know more than my digital marketing teacher, which is irritating considering I’m not even on social media anymore. And the team performance class doesn’t exactly play to my strengths? But the supply chain management course is actually really interesting so far.” 

Patrick has so many questions, namely _Who are you?_ But he settles on, “What made you decide to do this?”

David makes the face _again_. And then he reaches for Patrick’s hand and rests his on top of it. His hand is warm and incredibly soft. It’s not like he’s never noticed before but it’s different like this, the weight of it on his, the gentle pressure of the pads of his fingers on the top of Patrick’s wrist. David stares at their hands stacked like that as he takes a big breath in and out. And then he looks up and catches Patrick’s eyes. His are dark and unfathomable, and Patrick thinks again, _Who are you?_

“I want you to be here. I’m never going to stop thinking of this as our store. But if you’re being pulled somewhere else and you want to go? Then I want us both to know that I will be okay if you go.”

Patrick pulls his hand away abruptly at that. 

“So you’re going back to school because what? You think I’m just going to bail on this?”

“No. That’s not—hmph.” David stands up and paces back and forth across the little break room. He stops and fidgets with the mugs by the espresso machine and then comes back and leans forward with his hands flat on the table.

“David. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right where I want to be.”

“Tim—”

“This isn’t about Tim,” Patrick snarls, standing up so he is closer to eye-level. “Your name may be on the sign but this store is as much mine as it is yours. You can’t release me from it like I’ve just been doing you a favor for the last—god. Is that seriously what you think this is?”

“No! Of course not. But things change, Patrick. People change. And I want you to have the freedom to change if you want to.”

“That’s not happening,” Patrick says, stepping close. He can’t remember the last time they stood this close. “Listen to me, David Rose. That’s not happening. I’m not going anywhere.”

The force of it surprises them both. He knows he really shouldn’t be promising things like this. He has a boyfriend who deserves compromise and openness and growth and he has to leave some room to give that to him. People _do_ change. The things people want can change too. But he still _wants_ this. He still loves this. So he means it when he says he’s not going anywhere. “I mean it,” he repeats aloud.

David is looking at him like he used to whenever Patrick was too earnest or too fond. Like he needs to wave a hand through him to make sure he’s real. He folds Patrick into a hug instead, squeezing until the tension starts to dissipate, and whispers, “Okay. I’m going to keep taking the classes. But I’m glad you want to stay.”

* * *

Patrick comes home from Schitt’s Creek feeling a little clobbered until Tim meets him in the foyer with a wide grin, still holding a spatula as he wraps him up in a long hello kiss. 

“Guess what? Operation Find Gainful Employment 2022 has achieved its stated objective.”

“Wow,” Patrick says. Tim’s enthusiasm is infectious as usual and he’s kissing Patrick’s cheeks and forehead and neck and he’s so happy that Patrick feels the happiness seep into his skin and into his heart and then he’s kissing him back.

“Come in. Dinner’s almost ready.”

Patrick follows him in to find the kitchen in predictable disarray, which Patrick has learned to accept as a temporary concession in exchange for dinner regularly prepared by someone not Patrick. “So what’s the job?” he asks. 

“It’s through my old publisher actually. It’s a whole series about exploration, and we’ll be digging into the history of mysterious locations around the world and—”

“Wait, the publisher in London?”

“Yeah, there’s a bit of travel involved but I can do the work from here in between trips. Anyway the authors are not really writers so I would be sort of compiling the stories. Part editing, part ghostwriting.”

“Wow, congrats,” Patrick says, because it seems like what he’s supposed to say. He’s not entirely sure what all of this means for Tim, much less for the two of them.

“I just called finally to see if they could connect me with anyone who might have freelance work and then this whole project just dropped right in my lap. Boom.” His voice is round and deep as he gestures with the spatula to demonstrate a small explosion. 

“So you’d be working here though?”

“I’m still figuring out the travel bit, but yeah.”

“Hey,” Patrick says, taking the spatula out of his hand so he can pull him close without danger of sauce on his clothing. “I’m really happy for you.”

“Thank you,” Tim says, kissing him. The buzzing excitement quiets just for a moment and he looks at Patrick so intently that Patrick feels like his knees might buckle. “I’m just over the damn moon about it, Patrick.” 

“Then I am, too,” Patrick says, which might be the first outright lie he’s ever told him. But he thinks it’s not quite a lie because he wants so badly for it to be true.

* * *

For a while, it’s great. They set up a desk in their bedroom, nestled into the bay window that projects over Main Street below. Tim spends his days there, working among his stacks and piles. He joins Patrick for lunch when Lupe is around to cover the store and talks enthusiastically about his various projects. 

Then the travel starts, trips lasting from a few days to two weeks. It’s hard at first but they adjust. Tim holds time for their calls and makes every single one. He sends postcards wherever he goes, and letters, and snippets of books he finds or articles he reads. Patrick puts the postcards up and starts keeping a box for the rest. He saves everything Tim sends like it’s a piece of Tim himself. He pulls it out when he’s lonely. Tim and Patrick both make friends easily, which he's grateful for now. They have lots of people nearby that Patrick can spend time with to make the weeks when Tim is gone go faster, especially on the days when he can't make it back to Schitt's Creek.

Patrick has always known Tim thrived on stories, but it’s something else entirely to watch him participate in the making of them. It doesn’t matter how far away he is when he calls; he’s so happy and it reaches across the miles and infects Patrick the same way it does when he’s in his arms. The fact that happy, thriving Tim is really good at phone sex doesn’t hurt either.

His company starts asking for more of him, though. They want him to spend part of the summer and fall in London so he can work with the project team in person. Patrick is deep in rehearsals for _Fun Home_ , this year’s community theater production, along with baseball and running Pride Outside in Tim’s absence, so most of the time he’s too busy to miss him more than he usually does on shorter trips, which in fairness is quite a lot.

Tim will be in London on Patrick’s birthday, so Stevie is assigned the role of distracting him. Stevie is easily his closest friend after David so it’s no chore to spend the day with her. But a day of running lines and helping Stevie assemble IKEA furniture is not quite the same as the previous birthdays spent primarily wrapped up in bed with Tim until it was time to leave for “dinner.” As the lights come on and everyone yells, “Surprise!” Stevie pats him on the back in silent support of his performance. Tim yells surprise too, his voice grainy over the speaker of David’s phone.

When Tim’s extended stay is finally over, Patrick picks him up at the airport in Thornbridge on a unseasonably hot October evening. Tim kisses him in his favorite spot, right at the base of his forehead, and pulls him close and just breathes in.

“Your hair is getting long,” he says, carding his fingers through it. 

“Yeah.”

“And curly,” he murmurs. “It just looks kind of wavy on the screen, but these are actual curls.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, breathing in the scent of faraway places lingering on his clothes. “How was it?”

“Really great,” Tim says. “Just the absolute best time.”

“I’m glad,” Patrick says, even though it makes his heart clench. 

Tim pulls him closer and drops his head to Patrick’s shoulder. Even though he’s rangy, it takes all of Patrick’s strength to support him. Tim nuzzles into his neck and Patrick feels his words against his skin as he whispers, “But this is really nice too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MoreHuman's fic [It's Harder, When You're Older, To Begin](%E2%80%9C) is one of my favorites in the fandom and I now need Stevie and Patrick to perform in _Fun Home_ in every universe, including this one. So that’s what that was about. 
> 
> Many thanks to DelphinaBoswell for very helpfully answering a lot of vague questions regarding this chapter.


	8. 2023

“Did you start a load of laundry?” Tim asks, coming into the living area with a basket of clothes.

“Yeah. I always do towels on Sunday,” Patrick says, turning down the volume on the Blue Jays game.

“And you didn’t think I might have a load to wash before I go?” Patrick doesn’t answer right away, trying to decide if this is a diffusible mood.

“It should be done in twenty minutes. I could make the time pass more quickly for you,” Patrick tries with a grin.

Tim’s scowl cracks open as he sets the laundry basket on the coffee table and bends over Patrick on the couch. The kiss is warm but distracted. 

“Let me get my carry-on together and then you can try your best with the time that’s left.”

Patrick watches Tim disappear down the hall. He leaves again before dawn and Patrick likes to collect mental pictures of him in their space while he’s still here.

When Tim is gone, Patrick keeps busy without too much fuss and looks forward to postcards and letters and video and phone calls. When Tim is home, they fit in as much time together as possible on the trails and at the beach and curled up in front of movies and tangled up in bed. Patrick doesn’t really mind the two extremes, Tim away and Tim home. They’re both restful in their own ways.

It’s the two or three days on either side of a trip that they struggle: the transition from his routine alone to his routine with Tim, the way Tim gets progressively more antsy as he packs and has to unpack before he can settle back home, the feeling of needing to make every last minute of togetherness count, and, especially after longer trips, the adjustment to the touch and feel of each other after so long with so little of it.

Tim has been home for almost two months, which has been great, but it has made the packing phase worse. And this time he’ll be gone for another long stay, returning at the end of October. Patrick is going to miss him like crazy, but it might be better than the constant back and forth. For both of them.

Patrick makes good on his promise to occupy Tim before it’s time for him to go. Then he kisses him goodbye like he always does and tells him he loves him like he always does and holds him as close as he can and tries to memorize the shape and scent and feel of him one last time like he always does. 

* * *

When Patrick arrives for their regular business meeting on a rainy day in early September, he is pleasantly surprised to see Alexis Rose gracing their regular booth at Café Tropical. Whatever she is saying has David scissoring his hand through his hair while he glares at his textbook. When she spots Patrick, she quickly abandons her sentence and flings herself at him. 

“Oh my god, Patrick, long-time-no-see!” she says. She’s taller than him in her heels but still manages to hang around his neck. He doesn’t mind it; he wraps her in a big bear hug. 

“I didn’t know you were going to be in town,” Patrick says, releasing her.

“Oh. Well.” She nods solemnly. “Unfortunately Alex and I broke up.”

“Yes, the days of Alex and Alexis have come to an end,” David says, biting down his grin as she swats him with a limp fist. Patrick loves it when Alexis comes back for a visit. He loves to see her of course, but he especially loves to see David with her. He loves the way David’s hair is now sticking off in several directions because she can work him up like no one else.

“ _Any-way_ ,” she says, “This seemed like a good place to start over, so here I am!”

“She’s crashing on my couch for two weeks,” David says, in a voice that says “can’t wait” with a face that says “kill me now.”

“Yes. Speaking of which, I thought we discussed a guest bedroom situation,” Alexis says.

“Oh we did. And I reminded you that I don’t have a guest bedroom.”

“So, Patrick,” Alexis says, as though she won the argument, “I thought maybe you and Tim could come over tonight and we could all, like, hang.”

“I have to study tonight,” David says.

“Ugh, David. All you have been doing is studying since I got here. And now you’re making me tutor you which is, like, so much worse.”

David closes his textbook with a snap. “I am not _making_ you tutor me. I told you all the ways this brand management class is incorrect because I was looking for some moral support. If anything, _you’re_ making you tutor me.”

“Well I would hate to miss . . . all of this,” Patrick interjects. “But Tim is out of town so I’m probably going to go home and watch the game tonight.”

“Ooh, that sounds fun,” Alexis says. “Why don’t you come over and we’ll all watch the game?”

“Great idea, Alexis.” David says, voice high on sarcasm. “What game are we watching?”

“Mmm, good question. What game are we watching, Patrick?” Alexis asks, undeterred. 

“Blue Jays-L.A. Dodgers.”

“Ooh, the Dodgers. Can’t wait to root root root for my home team,” Alexis says. 

“Too bad you left your spirit wear at home,” David responds.

“Anyway Twyla is about to take her break and I promised her some girl-talk so. See you both tonight!”

Alexis saunters away with a wave and a blown kiss as Patrick sits down in the booth across from David. “It’s good to have her back for a bit, huh?”

David glances over to where Alexis is perched at the counter and murmurs, “Yes it is.”

“Anything I can bring tonight?” Patrick asks. David shoots him a glare and silently opens his leather notebook where he keeps his notes for the stores.

* * *

Watching the game with David and Alexis means he’s still basically watching it alone. David is nose-to-textbook at the little dining table to the left of the couch and Alexis is reading a magazine next to him, except she’s not really reading the magazine if the amount of talk about his branding class is any indication.

David eventually moves on to Law and Management and Alexis stands up with a flourish. 

“I’m tapping out here,” she says, settling next to Patrick. “Ooh, my team is winning.”

“No, that’s the number of strikes,” Patrick says.

“Mmhmm, yes. Exactly,” she says.

“The only thing I’ve learned in this tort law unit is that it should be illegal to have a type of law that sounds like a baked good,” David gripes from the table. “And also now I’m hungry.”

He stands up and opens a few cupboards and then the refrigerator and sits back down with a banana from the bowl on the counter. 

“I can help you with torts,” Patrick says. David hesitates just long enough that Patrick stands up and joins him at the table before he can refuse. 

Alexis settles back in with her magazine on the couch this time and Patrick loses track of the game while trying to walk David through the different kinds of torts. He’s a little rusty but between his memory and the textbook he can put the pieces together.

David gets the hang of it quickly once Patrick reframes the examples in relation to the kinds of situations they have dealt with at the store.

Two weeks later, when David comes by the Elm Valley location for their regular meeting, he brings a pale green box that Patrick recognizes from the baker down the street.

“What’s this?” Patrick asks.

“Open it,” David says. 

Patrick releases the tabs and folds open the lid. 

“It’s a cake.”

“Um, no. Well yes. But more specifically, it’s a torte,” he says, emphasizing the ending T. “To celebrate this.”

He hands Patrick his paper about using tort law to inform management practices. There’s an A at the top and a note commending him for creative solutions to the various prompts. He used a few of the examples Patrick cited from the store, but included several others he extrapolated from their conversation.

“Wow,” Patrick says, flipping through it.

“Okay can you tone down the disbelief just a little bit?” David asks, circling a hand in the general direction of Patrick’s face. 

“I’m—I’m really proud of you.”

“Thanks,” he says, obviously delighted. He pushes the torte toward Patrick. “Now the next unit is on trademarks and patents. And I’m hoping this will buy me some tutoring time?”

“Of course,” Patrick says. “Although I will be expecting something made out of patent leather if you do similarly well.”

David freezes. Patrick was imagining one of the notebooks they sell at the store but he hears what patent leather might sound like when you’re not trying to make a joke to cover how moved you are to help your friend do a thing that’s important to him. 

“But you know baked goods are fine. Or really—you don’t owe me anything. Like I said, I’m happy to help.”

“Good,” David breathes, “because I don’t think you can pull off patent leather.”

Patrick considers telling him he can and he has—Tim’s leather kink is one of his favorite things—but this is probably not the time or place for that reveal.

Arrangements made, Patrick comes to David’s apartment at least once a week for the next month. Patrick realizes that it’s the most time they’ve spent together alone and not working on the store in years. It’s nice actually. He’s forgotten that David alone is a whirlwind of snark and untarnished confidence and firmly-held opinions and occasionally in the midst of that, startling generosity and staggering sweetness. 

Patrick usually stays for dinner, often just the two of them or sometimes with Stevie or Maggie or both. Maggie and David cook together when she comes over. They work in the kitchen like a unit, her pausing to squeeze his hips or kiss his cheek or tease him about the way he has to carefully clean up from one task before moving on to the next thing. She’s brusque and sharp but she seems to know where the line is, knows how far she can push it so that she brings David out of his shell instead of sealing him in. 

As much as David seems to like Maggie, Patrick starts to believe him when he says it’s not serious. He says it in enough ways and in enough contexts and with enough clear-eyed conviction that Patrick can see that their relationship is not one of David’s top priorities. And it seems like Maggie feels the same way. It’s respect between them for sure. And fun, clearly. But not love. Not yet anyway. 

When Tim comes back for a month, David offers to end the tutoring but Patrick refuses. “I’m not going to abandon you a month before finals,” he says. But David comes to Elm Valley instead of Patrick heading to Schitt’s Creek so they can include Tim on the post-studying dinners. Maggie too, since she lives closer to Patrick anyway.

Studying becomes the regular plan on Thursdays but an event at the store preempted the Thursday session, so David is over on Friday instead, fitting in tutoring before Patrick’s standing date with Tim. They’re crowded around David’s textbook downstairs in the soft early-evening light of the office at the Elm Valley store when Patrick notices it.

“Uh, David. I think business school is giving you gray hairs.”

“I know. I used to pluck them but there’s too many now. Time to look into dying them I guess.”

“No!” Patrick says before he can stop himself. David puts the cap back on his pen as he looks up.

“No?” His face is a mixture of challenge and humor.

“I mean. It’s your choice obviously. I just mean, uh, that . . .” _It looks way too good to cover up_ , which he’s not going to say. “Sorry.”

“Okay,” he says, voice low. Patrick bites the inside of his cheek, suddenly hot with embarrassment. 

There’s a knock at the door frame to the office before Tim pokes his head in. “You almost ready for dinner?”

“Yeah. I just have to come up and change my shoes,” Patrick says. 

“Okay,” Tim says, disappearing almost as quickly as he appeared. 

“I will never get over how he can be Ed Sheeran by day and turn into Harry Styles at night,” David says. Patrick doesn’t think Tim resembles either of them very much but he guesses the Harry Styles thing is supposed to be a compliment based on David’s stated preferences. 

“You know David, not everyone can pull off a day-to-night look as effortlessly as you and me.”

“Is that what this is?” David asks, gesturing toward Patrick’s ensemble. He wears more fitted clothes than he used to, but his basic uniform is still the same. Patrick feels the warm blush creep back into his cheeks. 

“Haven’t had any complaints so far,” Patrick says. And since David has a key, Patrick bids him goodnight and goes up to change his shoes.

* * *

Tim keeps rearranging the silverware, putting the knife to the right of the spoon and then to the left again, and then straight across the top of the plate. He puts his napkin on his lap and then fiddles with the edges with his fingers. He drinks his entire glass of water and turns the tumbler in his hands while he waits for a refill. 

“Right, I can’t focus,” Tim says instead of answering Patrick’s follow-up question about one of the authors he’s working with. “I wanted to wait until after dinner and do a whole thing and I’m starting to lose my nerve and I think I should just . . . out with it, yeah?”

Patrick nods, his swallow audible enough to catch Tim’s attention. Tim looks up from the place setting in front of him and catches Patrick’s eyes with his. Whatever he sees, it makes him smile. Patrick tries to quell his nerves as he smiles back. He has spent as much of the year alone as he has with Tim, but he knows him well enough to know that something is up. His hands ache to reach for Tim’s to reassure them both and then like magic, Tim’s hand is in his, squeezing hard.

“I know it’s been hard with me gone as much as I have been lately. And I just wanted to start by saying how grateful I am that you’ve been so supportive. It’s been hard at times but I’ve never felt like we couldn’t make it work?”

“Never,” Patrick agrees.

“So I’ve been talking with my office about what’s next, once we wrap up this project next year, and I asked if there might be an option to stay closer or travel less. Anyway they have a chief editor retiring at their imprint that’s based in Toronto.”

“Retiring? So what . . . you would apply for that job?”

“It would be a big promotion but the imprint is focused on a lot of different methods for storytelling, not just print books, and I think I’d be good at that. I think they like me enough to let me have a go. I would have to move to Toronto but we could have weekends together. Or we could get a place there. Lots of people run retail outlets from a distance. We could even keep the place here and go back and forth if you want. I know we would figure it out.”

“Tim . . .” Patrick truly doesn’t know what to say. The drive to Toronto is almost as long as the flight to London, but it would be cheaper. And they could find places halfway. Or. Or he could move without giving up the Apothecary, like Tim says.

“I know you have to talk to David. And probably want to think about it for yourself. And we can ease into it if you’re not ready to move completely yet. I don’t have to decide until January of next year.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “I mean I do need to think about it.”

“Good,” he says. And Patrick tries to focus on dinner. Tries to make good conversation and enjoy being in the moment with him. It’s one of his favorite things about Tim, how easy it is to be in the moment with him. But he can’t. Because he can’t stop thinking about it.

* * *

The annual Schitt’s Creek Christmas Party on Christmas Eve was started by the Rose family several years ago, so even though David is the only Rose still living in town, Rose Apothecary sponsors the event and takes on most of the planning. Once Patrick closes the Elm Valley store for the holiday, he drives to Schitt’s Creek to help with the final set-up of Town Hall and to get a chance to catch up with Mr. and Mrs. Rose before the townspeople descend.

Mrs. Rose is already lounging with a glass of wine when Patrick arrives. “Oh hello, dear,” she says, waving at him but not getting up. It’s always a shock to see how much Alexis and Mr. Rose change in between visits, but he can count on Mrs. Rose to be much like she was whenever he saw her last. She might be a little older but she’s just as shiny and bold and unapologetically herself as she always has been. He loves that about her.

“Hi, Mrs. Rose,” he says. “Is David around?”

“Oh I expect he’s downstairs with Stevie attempting to locate the décor with which to garnish this drab little chamber,” she says. “And where is sweet Timothy on this festive occasion?”

“He’s in London until next month, unfortunately,” Patrick says. The thought of Tim sends a small panic up his spine. They only have about a week left to make the decision about Toronto, and he still has no idea what he wants to do.

Mrs. Rose makes one of her signature pouts. “Well that is a shame. You know how I adore his off-key caroling.”

“Oh I do,” Patrick says. Patrick refrains from mentioning that everyone is a little off-key by the end of the night, Mrs. Rose included.

“You know Patrick. Mr. Rose and I were once living with quite a lengthy span of country between us. It’s very important to—”

“What’s going on here?” David interrupts. 

“Just catching up,” Patrick says. “Hi.”

“Hi. Are you here to help or have you decided to join the ranks of the day drinkers?” he asks, gesturing toward his mom, who waves him off. 

“I’m here to help,” Patrick says, giving Mrs. Rose a knowing smile. 

“Good. Stevie has a box of ornaments. You can put them on the tree.”

Patrick makes himself useful until the guests begin to arrive, and then settles in with Alexis and Twyla and a bowl of chips and salsa while the party swirls around them.

He gets pulled away by Mr. Rose and Roland who are attempting to ask a year’s worth of questions about their latest business idea. He’s about to duck out early when the Jazzagals rope Mrs. Rose into a rendition of “I’ll be Home for Christmas.” Patrick loves their version so he decides to stay a little longer.

As Twyla sings, “ _Christmas Eve will find you, where the love light gleams,_ ” he sidles up to David and claps an arm around his shoulders. 

“Good night?”

“The room looks good,” David says, nodding and looking around.

“Mmhmm,” Patrick hums under the music as the rest of the Jazzagals join in for the chorus. They both catch Stevie tearing up.

“What? It’s just nice,” she says. Patrick thinks some version of this happens every year.

“C’mere,” Patrick says, and she tucks in under his other arm. And then he’s standing there with his two best friends and listening to the song and trying not to cry himself. He still hasn’t decided where home will be a year from now. But for now, it’s right here. 

As the song ends, David turns and whispers in his ear. “Hey, can I borrow you for a minute?”

“Sure.” Patrick follows him outside.

“So your mom and Tim and I have been working on a Christmas gift for you, and it’s kind of time sensitive,” he says, handing over a card.

“Okay . . .” Patrick tries to guess from David’s expression what it must be. 

“Open it.” David gestures impatiently at the envelope until Patrick pops open the flap.

The card is simple but it contains a printout of a flight confirmation and trip summary. 

“I know it’s been hard with Tim away, and you don’t feel like you can leave the store that long but . . . Jocelyn agreed to work in the store for part of her winter break and we have our other staff to keep her from turning it into a Yarn for Cheap, so you should go. We’ll survive a week without you.” David takes a deep breath and exhales with his whole body, his palms open, like he’s letting out the residual nerves.

He doesn’t know what to say. “These tickets are for two days from now.”

“Yes I wanted to tell you sooner but I was outvoted.”

“The flight leaves from Cedar Grove.”

“Well unfortunately since your parents chipped in for the tickets they insisted on you flying out from there. I think they wanted to see you off. But it also saves you from taking the connecting flight on Larry Air so.”

“David . . .” Patrick is either speechless or he has too many things fighting to be said for any one of them to emerge victorious. He’s not sure. 

“Is this okay?” he asks. 

Patrick nods and pulls him into a hug. David seems to be wearing some kind of holiday-themed cologne, because of course he is, and the shiny threads woven into his sweater are a little bit scratchy under Patrick’s chin until he pulls him tighter and Patrick can’t distinguish the feel of any individual part of him from the press of all of him. 

“Merry everything,” David whispers.

“Merry everything, David.” 

Patrick says goodbye to the Roses and the rest of his friends at the party and drives home to pack. David must text Marcy because Patrick’s phone turns immediately into a fireworks display of logistics messages and links.

His parents have their own holiday party the evening of Christmas Day. Patrick mostly sits in an easy chair in the living room while family and friends cycle through as he attempts to explain his trip to visit his partner—no, not the partner he runs the store with—who lives in London, where Patrick doesn’t live because he runs a store in Schitt’s Creek with his partner. Business partner. The befuddled faces combined with his third beer have him feeling more uneasy about the choices he has to make. 

He sobers quickly when Rachel drops by with her parents and her husband, Nathan. He keeps in touch with her through the occasional text message and visit when he’s home, but it’s the first time he’s meeting her twins. They climb into his lap with their book like he’s their long lost uncle and she sits on the chair next to him and occasionally intervenes (“No, Gabe, remember what mommy said. We have to keep our shirts on at parties. That means you too, Lucas.”). Marcy asks if she can give them c-o-o-k-i-e-s and with Rachel’s nod they scramble after her to the kitchen.

“They’re great, Rach,” Patrick says. 

“They really are. Mostly thanks to this one,” she says, patting Nathan’s knee next to her. Nathan works at home with the twins which gives Rachel more flexibility to see patients. 

“Keeping those two alive is a joint effort,” Nathan says. “I’m going to get another drink. Want anything, hon?”

“Wine, please,” she says, handing him her empty glass. 

“Patrick?”

“I’m fine,” he says. When Nathan is out of earshot, Patrick adds, “You seem really happy.”

“I am. You know I used to be so mad at you about everything,” she says. “But I think what I learned in all those years was how to work for someone, you know? It’s easier with Nathan. We don’t have to try as hard. But after the boys were born, after his mom died, when I was finishing med school . . . It was hard there for a bit. And I knew how to work for it. I’m really grateful to you for that, Patrick.”

“Hmm,” Patrick hums, because he kind of understands. It’s so much easier with Tim than it ever was with Rachel. But they’ve had to work hard sometimes. Especially lately with Tim away. “Well I’m glad you came. And that you’re not still mad at me.”

“Hmm,” she echoes. “I mean, I’m still a little mad.”

“Fair enough.” Patrick laughs softly and then Nathan comes back and the boys come and cover his lap with cookie crumbs and sprinkles as Patrick reads them the same book for the third time. 

The next day he gets on a flight to London. Tim greets him at the airport with a hug so tight it lifts him off the ground temporarily. They waste no time heading to Tim’s parents’ house for Boxing Day dinner. He’s talked with them countless times by video but this is the first time in person. It goes pretty well, he thinks. Patrick learns that Tim gets his cooking skills as well as his slow destruction of the kitchen in the process from his mom. He gets his love of the outdoors and people from his dad. They stay for the night, which means they have to make up for lost time quietly in the small guest bedroom, but they try again more loudly when they return to Tim’s tiny flat in Camden the next day. 

Tim has to work over the next couple of days so Patrick gets some time to wander around the neighborhood. It’s not too different from the little commercial strip where he lives in Elm Valley, if you add culture and variety and better food and more unique shops and well. It’s nothing like the commercial strip where he lives in Elm Valley. And while he explores, he sends David and Lupe so many text messages checking on the store that they both stop answering them. 

Tim takes Patrick to his office on the last Friday of the year and out to lunch at his favorite pub across the street. Patrick can see firsthand how much he loves his job while they’re in the midst of it. And how much the job loves him. People drop in to meet Patrick or give Tim shit about something and Tim laughs and bounces off the walls like . . . like Patrick does on a good day at the store, really. 

“So I have a question,” Patrick starts as they walk up the stairs to Tim’s flat.

“Is it about what we discussed earlier?” Tim asks with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle. “Because I think we have enough time to make that work before dinner.”

“No,” Patrick says, although his dick says differently. “It’s about Toronto. It’s not the same job right? So you’d be doing something different than you’re doing now?”

“Yes. I mean there would be similarities. But probably more managerial and less in the trenches.”

“Don’t you—I mean it seems like you kind of like the trenches.” Patrick closes the door behind him. 

“I do,” Tim agrees, shedding his coat. “But as you’ll certainly recall I also like telling people what to do. So take off your clothes, please. I have a few things I’d like you to do before dinner.”

By the time Patrick is done with Tim’s list, they’re both too fucked out to get up and make an elaborate meal. Tim manages to put together some crackers and cheese and they eat carefully over plates to keep crumbs out of the bed. 

“Have you given any more thought to Toronto?” Tim asks, stacking Patrick’s plate on his then setting them both aside. Patrick turns so he can rest his head on Tim’s chest, staring at the plaster moldings around the ceiling of his early-nineteenth century apartment. Tim combs through his hair with both hands, twisting it around his fingers. It’s a few inches long now, although the curls eat up a lot of the length. Tim’s hands are drawn to it all the time, but especially when they fuck, and Patrick loves the way his long fingers curve around his head through the mass of it.

“I have thoughts,” Patrick says. “I don’t know if I have a decision. I know we need to make one soon.”

“Yeah. Have any more questions about it?”

“If I wasn’t a factor, would you stay here?” Patrick asks before he can stop himself. It’s a question that’s been pushing at his mind all day.

“Most certainly,” Tim’s voice is frank. “But. You _are_ a factor. The most important one, actually.”

Tim releases his hair with one of his hands and takes Patrick’s hand, tracing the slender bones of his fingers.

Patrick thinks not for the first time that he should probably let both of them off the hook. He could suggest a break or a pause so that Tim can figure out his next step without Patrick and his conflicted brain. But he can’t bring himself to let Tim go. Maybe Tim will hate the next project and want to come home and everything will be back to how it should be. Patrick looks around the small studio Tim rented so he could keep a few of his things permanently on this side of the ocean and realizes with a start that Tim is home.

Patrick wants to say yes to Toronto. He thinks he can be happy here or Toronto or anywhere. And this is real, what they have. It would be stupid to let it go. But he’s made smart decisions his whole life and not one of them has made him as happy as the complete stupidity of partnering with David to build a fledgling and occasionally struggling retail empire. So he doesn’t necessarily trust the smart decision. 

“I don’t need an answer today,” Tim says. “Just, you know, by Monday.”

“Oh, well that’s plenty of time,” Patrick huffs. Tim pulls Patrick so he’s curled against his side and eventually Patrick’s brain pauses long enough for him to sleep.

* * *

Tim’s boss is hosting a New Year’s Eve party at his large apartment on the twelfth floor of a newer high-rise in Canary Wharf, and Tim says they have to go, but promises it will be fun. Patrick flies home Monday, which is tomorrow, which is also when Tim has to give them an answer about Toronto. Tim’s boss Elias has a half-graying mop of wavy hair and thick-framed readers that spend most of the night perched on the crown of his head like a headband. He is otherwise styled within an inch of his life, as David would say. He leans against the bar stool next to Patrick and tells him that Tim talks about him all the time and that Tim is a huge asset to their team and he hopes they can work out the position in Toronto. Like it’s a done deal. And it has taken way too long but finally, Patrick realizes it’s not. 

The problem is. The problem is right now, he has everything. Friends and a business and a man that he loves. And if he moves, he only has the last thing. And as big and wonderful as that last thing is, and as much as he knows he can rebuild the other two, he just. He doesn’t want to. If he can only have the new partnership he has built with Tim or the partnership he built first with David, if he can’t have both . . . Then he wants the partnership he has with David.

“Can I talk to you?” Patrick asks Tim, pointing toward the balcony about twenty minutes before midnight.

“Sure, but I want to be back for the countdown,” Tim says, taking his hand.

“Let’s Be Still” by The Head and The Heart starts playing over the home audio system. It’s an old song by now, Patrick realizes, but it makes him want to cry and he hasn’t even gotten to the hard part. 

The balcony is deserted—it’s too chilly to enjoy it for any length of time—and Patrick puts his hands on the cold metal railing and looks out at the foreign city below. He lets the words of the song drift around him. 

_"The world's just spinning,_  
_A little too fast,_  
_If things don't slow down soon,_  
_we might not last,_  
_So just for the moment, let's be still."_

It would have been a good song for them, he thinks. They never decided on one. The tears are already coming when he turns to Tim.

“I can’t move to Toronto with you,” Patrick says. Patrick blows out a breath at the same time that Tim sucks one in. 

“I can keep looking. It doesn’t have to be—”

“No. One of the things I lo-love most about you is that you’re willing to try so hard to make this work. We both try so hard. And I think we could probably do that forever. We could try hard forever. We might even be happy doing that. I don’t mind trying with you. It’s so good trying for you.”

Patrick looks back at the city, the lights glowing as far as he can see into the distance, and thinks about the soft light in his parents’ living room and Rachel’s peaceful smile as her boys made a mess of Patrick’s pants while he read to them about a little boy who wants to be a mermaid and turns it into his reality.

Tim watches the city with him for a long time before he turns. “So what I’m getting is that . . . I’m going to need you to be a little more clear, Patrick.” 

“I think we should stop trying so hard,” he says. A tear drops out of Tim’s eye at the same time, like it was locked and loaded. “I think I should go home and I think you should stay. You clearly love it here. And we should try that instead.”

Tim makes a fist and taps it against the railing as he nods and blinks back the tears. “Christ. I’m so fucking mad at you for this,” he says. “What are you staying there for?”

“I started over once,” Patrick says. “And I built something I’m proud of. It matters to me.”

“I know that. Why do you think I tried to find a way for you to keep it?” He’s hovering between devastated and angry and Patrick wants to hold him and not let go. But it’s not good for Tim to keep holding on to him forever. It took him way too long to see it, but it’s so clear now. It’s probably not good for Patrick either, even though he wants to hold on so, so badly.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “And after one week here with you, there’s no way I’m going to let you give this up so I can keep that. Especially if I can’t keep it the way I want to.”

“I’m so mad at you and I’m also . . . Fuck. I hate that I can’t have one fucking feeling about you right now that isn’t complicated by how much I love you.” He swipes angrily at his face and looks at Patrick again as he shakes his head.

The music turns off inside and the countdown starts at one hundred. Patrick wants to say so many things as the crowd inside yells ninety, eighty, seventy, and on. “I love you, too,” are the only words he can form. The countdown gets louder at ten, nine, eight, and then erupts into cheers at one. 

There’s a minute where they stand there, shivering on the balcony and staring at each other. And then Tim pulls him in with a wavering smile and kisses him so, so softly. He presses another kiss against the base of Patrick’s forehead and whispers against his skin, “Please have the happiest new year, Patrick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to olive2read and DelphinaBoswell for giving me a lot of useful information which I glossed over anyway. It's still a huge help to talk it through.
> 
> If you are sad to see Tim go, olive2read wrote me a lovely birthday gift [ficlet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23032996) from Tim's POV. Score: A Hockey Musical references abound. Fandom friends are the best, basically.
> 
> The book Patrick reads to Rachel’s kids is _Julián Is a Mermaid_ by Jessica Love.


	9. 2024

“Who breaks up with someone in the middle of a party?” Tim asks, tapping his foot while they wait for the Tube. 

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says for what feels like the millionth time. “As soon as we get back to your place, I’ll get my stuff and I’ll just leave for—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Patrick.” Tim’s gentle acceptance on the balcony has given way to anger the longer he’s stuck with Patrick following him around London. “It’s the middle of the night. You’ll stay.”

“Then I can get a hotel. I’ll feel better knowing—”

“At this very moment, I am tired, I have a headache, and I don’t give two fucks about what will make you feel better. I would like to be less of one or two of those things. So I need you to come to my flat and sleep so I don’t have to worry about you padding around central London in search of lodging.”

The train arrives with a rush of air and Tim climbs on silently like he expects Patrick to follow, so he does. When they get back up to Tim’s flat he shrugs out of his coat and shoes and disappears into the bathroom with his pajamas. 

He emerges a few minutes later with a gruff, “Bathroom’s free.”

Patrick studies his reflection in the mirror while he brushes his teeth. He looks as awful as he feels, bags forming under his eyes already from the crying and the cold and the lack of sleep.

When he leaves he expects to settle on the large chair in the corner but Tim frowns and says no. “If you think I’m going to have any trouble keeping my hands to myself tonight, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Patrick wants to cry again, or keep crying, but he doesn’t want Tim to have to deal with that too, on top of everything else. 

Patrick crawls into the bed and plugs in his phone and doesn’t fall asleep until eventually he does. 

He wakes up surrounded in the familiar smell of Tim. Once he breaks through the haze of sleep he realizes he is curled up against Tim’s side, his t-shirt soft and faintly clammy against Patrick’s cheek. Tim’s body is tense; he’s already awake.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick says, trying to slide back to his side of the bed. But Tim just pulls him in tight and holds him. Tim breathes in and out, exhales harsh and jagged, and Patrick squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can to keep the tears from falling. 

“You’ll be the president of Pride Outside now,” Tim says, his voice a husk. “And Ronnie, vice president.”

“I doubt Ronnie is ever going to tell me I’m doing a good job.”

“You’ll do a great job,” Tim insists, and Patrick wants to kiss away the waver in his voice the way he does when Tim talks through something hard. He can’t kiss him though; Tim is holding him too tightly.

Tim presses his lips to the top of Patrick’s head and Patrick squeezes his eyes closed again to try to mute the scream of _just one last time_ driving through his body. Patrick knows how easily one last time can turn into six more months. If Patrick can give anything to Tim in return for the time to make this choice, he hopes it’s only having to endure the choice once.

Patrick can sort of bend his elbow so he reaches up and holds onto Tim’s arm. “I should get ready to go.”

“How can this be it? So what, you just . . . get on a plane and I never see you again?”

“I don’t know.” Tim is two years younger than Patrick and for the first time, it feels like it. Like he’s supposed to impart some kind of life wisdom he doesn’t have. “You could still send me postcards.”

It’s probably a terrible idea but now that it landed uninvited he has to shoo it out. “I mean you don’t have to. If you’re . . . I understand you’re angry.”

“I’m everything,” Tim says. “Angry and everything else on top of it. So tell me about the postcards.” 

“Well. I imagine you’ll keep seeing more of the world. And you’ll flirt with strangers and have them tell you their secrets. And sometimes they might even fall in love with you because of how easy that is, to tell you their secrets.” Patrick pushes against Tim enough to turn so he can see his face. His eyes are so light in the morning, catching the bright, clear winter sunshine. “And if you think of me at all in the midst of that, and you want to send me . . . a postcard or something? I’d love that. I’ll put them up and I’ll think of you too. Maybe at first that will happen a lot, which will be great. It will be great to hear from you. And eventually the postcards might come more slowly, and then not at all. And that will be okay too.” Tim nods and squeezes him closer so Patrick can’t see his face anymore. “Before I met you, I didn’t understand that adventure isn’t really about wherever we were going.”

“You better not forget it either. Even if you spend the rest of your life among the Greater Elms, you better fucking live.”

“Yeah,” Patrick whispers. “Promise me you won’t tear through your life okay?”

“Yeah,” Tim says. His hold relaxes and Patrick gets up so he can’t take it all back.

They don’t say much else while Patrick gets ready and packs up the last of his things.

Tim doesn’t offer to accompany him to the airport, which is probably for the best. They both need some space. They make arrangements for Patrick to pack up the things Tim wants. And then that’s just kind of it. Tim hugs him goodbye but it’s not warm like it was in bed, pressed against him. It really feels like goodbye.

* * *

Patrick doesn’t want to talk about it but he can’t not talk about it because he must look as wrecked as he feels by the time he gets off the plane in Cedar Grove. His mother doesn’t even ask, bless her. She just folds him close and squeezes until she wrings the tears out of him. 

“Oh my sweet boy,” she says. Between the crying and the barest of explanations, she tells him to stay an extra night and he doesn’t argue. His mom must have told David. That’s the only explanation for his message. 

_I have the store covered. Let me know when you’re ready to come back._

Sometimes it bothers him how effortless David's relationship is with his parents. It makes Patrick self-conscious sometimes that they're so comfortable with the person David is when it seems like they're always trying to catch up with the person Patrick is. But he's grateful for that conduit now, that David is one less person he has to tell.

Patrick stays in Cedar Grove for another night. For one reckless minute, waking up alone in his childhood bedroom-turned-catch-all space, he contemplates getting on a plane and flying back to London. And the fact that he’s even thinking about it is enough to get him to pack his things back into his car to go home to Elm Valley instead. He hopes someday he’ll know that this was the right choice to stop trying. To not try again. 

He leaves early on Tuesday. The store is closed on Tuesdays so he’s hoping he can get home and do some laundry and settle in before contemplating work tomorrow. He’s standing at the bottom of the back stairs looking up at his apartment door when David finds him.

“Hi,” he says, nudging Patrick’s shoulder lightly with his own and staring up the stairs with him. 

“Hi.”

“Your mom told me you were on your way back.”

“I imagine she’s told you everything,” Patrick says. He can see David studying him out of the corner of his eye and then he pulls out his phone and hands it over.

There are four messages from his mom. One letting David know she picked Patrick up. One letting him know something happened with Tim; no further explanation. One letting him know Patrick was staying for a day or two. And one letting him know Patrick was on his way home. 

The message before those four is a week old, sent from Marcy to David during Patrick’s trip. It’s a photo of a general store that opened recently in Cedar Grove followed by:

_Not like my boys store._

Patrick feels his heart clench at the sight of it. It’s missing an apostrophe so it’s impossible to know if she means one boy or two. Even so, it’s the most convicted he has felt about his decision since standing on the balcony counting down to the new year.

“I’m on my way over to Maggie’s, but I thought I’d stop by with this.” David is speaking so softly and still his voice echoes off the wood and plaster of the back stair. He hands over a thin CD case. Through the clear plastic, cloudy from wear, Patrick can see RA Vendor Road Trip 2020 scrawled across the top in his own handwriting. 

“Thank you,” he manages, even though it feels totally inadequate. Patrick wasn’t sure after the road trip if David would even keep the CD. 

“It’s a loan, to be clear. But um.” David does the thing he does where his face sort of fumbles for the appropriate expression while his brain fumbles for what he wants to say. “This got me through kind of a difficult time so. I thought maybe it would help.”

Patrick is still staring at it so David keeps going. “It’s a bit of a mess, thematically? Although since you probably don’t have a CD player, I made it into a playlist and tried to even that out with a few additional selections which I think you will find more squarely in your taste. Because I’m a good person.” David taps at his phone until the shared playlist shows up in Patrick’s notifications.

“Yes, you are,” Patrick agrees. David’s answering smile goes a long way toward reassuring him that he made the right decision.

Patrick looks up the stairs again and tries to will his body to start the climb. David turns and looks back up the stairs with him.

“Want to go for a drive?” David asks. 

“I thought you were spending your day off with Maggie?”

“She’ll understand.” David shrugs and gestures vaguely toward the back door.

“Okay.” Patrick exhales as he drops his bag by the bottom of the stairs, relieved to postpone the inevitable for a little longer.

They hop in David’s dark gray Hyundai sedan and David pushes the start button on the car and then the play button on the playlist. 

Patrick’s spirits are so buoyed by the CD, by its existence and signs of its repetitive use, that he isn’t prepared for the drum kit intro of “Train in Vain.” Huge tears drop out of his eyes and he’s crying again.

“Sorry, we don’t have to listen—”

“Leave it,” Patrick says, blocking the path of David’s hand to the controls. “Leave it.”

The Clash and Kelly Clarkson and Lizzo and Amy Winehouse get them to the edge of town, but David keeps driving. The power vocals transition into a block of folk and rock. Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” nearly does him in and by the time Bob Dylan and The Avett Brothers and Joni Mitchell are done, he’s swiping tears away with his hands. 

David leans over to the glove box and opens it, his knuckles knocking into Patrick’s knees. He fishes out a few napkins and hands them to Patrick wordlessly. Then he squeezes his shoulder and puts his hands back on the wheel at ten and two. They keep driving.

Gotye and The Smiths and The Postal Service turn into LÉON and Chvrches and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. When “Bye Bye Bye” starts, David points a stern finger at him and says, “Don’t even think about not singing this with me.”

Patrick reluctantly joins David in the song. It’s too cold to roll the windows down but he wails anyway. The problem is, he doesn’t really feel triumphant. He’s so far from triumphant. He can’t imagine ever feeling that way about Tim.

Halfway through the playlist David pulls into a parking space near the Elmdale Regency Mall.

“Pretzelmaker may be closed but there has to be an Orange Julius or something,” David says, turning off the car. They scan the options on the directory and settle on cinnamon rolls and pizza by the slice.

“Is there a bar?” Patrick asks as they sit down.

“Probably. Should I prepare Maggie for a threesome offer?” David asks, licking a smear of sauce off his finger. Patrick surprises himself with a laugh.

“Never gonna let me live that down, are you Panther?” David scowls at him which makes him laugh again.

“Should I ask if you want to talk about it?”

Patrick studies him. It occurs to him that he’s chosen to stay without talking to David about what his long-term plans are. They have a business plan for the first ten years, but they haven’t talked about what’s after that. And David will be graduating in a year. He doesn’t think he can bear to find out David has other plans right now. So he just shakes his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” David says. Patrick expects him to look relieved but he’s just kind. Open. Patrick wishes people would stop looking at him like it’s okay to change his mind about everything he says.

“How long is winter break?” he asks, hoping a change in subject will help him feel a little less on display.

“Another week.”

“Okay. Well I’m around if you want help again this semester.”

David tips his head like Patrick is being entirely too normal, which is unfair considering how hard Patrick is trying to be normal.

“I’ll see how it goes. But. I think you should take a week too,” David says. He waves his hand to cut off Patrick’s protest. “I’m fine covering for you until my classes start. You’re taking a week.”

Patrick considers telling him it will be good to get back to work. That he doesn’t get to decide what Patrick needs. That the distraction will be nice. That he’s actually doing okay, all things considered. That he’s been preparing for the worst since Tim took the job. But none of that is true. And he can keep things from David but he can’t lie to him. Not when he’s looking at him like this, like Patrick can throw anything at him and he’ll sit there and catch it. And anyway Patrick is fucking devastated and he wants to wallow. So he accepts the offer. They finish up and David asks if he needs anything before they go.

“Socks,” Patrick says, without thinking. Tim has opinions about socks—he's bought or opined on most of the pairs Patrick owns—and Patrick has to function without falling apart when he puts them on in the morning. 

They walk across the food court to Hudson’s Bay and Patrick thinks he’s going to buy a value pack. He hasn’t bought a pack of cheap white socks since before Tim. But he picks out a pair of nicer athletic socks and the patterned kind he likes for work instead. 

“Need anything?” Patrick asks David, who is examining another package of socks at close range. “They have really good socks here.”

“Very funny,” David says by way of answer. 

The drive home is scored by more upbeat pop anthems followed by the melancholy lyrics of Sara Bareilles and Ben Platt and Sinéad O’Connor. And then before Patrick knows it, they’re standing at the bottom of the back stairs to his apartment again.

“C’mon,” David says, taking Patrick’s suitcase and hauling it upstairs. 

When he opens the door, it’s hard not to see all the mental images of Tim he’s taken to keep when Tim is away. There are a lot of tangible signs of him too. His shoes on the shelf by the back door, below a bulletin board with a few of the postcards he’s sent pinned up among post-its and reminders. Pictures of the two of them in frames around the living area. The spatula Tim insists remain close to the stove. Patrick can hear Tim’s humor-filled voice saying it’s the only one up to the task of breakfast food.

The memories and futility and frustration of it all pours out of Patrick and he slams a fist into the kitchen counter, making the salt and pepper and oil shiver. 

“He’s just fucking everywhere. I did that on purpose, so that when he was gone I could—Fuck.” He rubs his hand and looks at David, who is doing a surprisingly good job of looking like he has this under control.

“Okay. You sit. I will, um.” David looks around. “I will just.”

“David you don’t have to stay. I think I’m just going to take a nap. I’m not even hungry after all that food we ate.”

“Okay.”

Patrick abandons his suitcase and shopping bag by the door and curls up on the couch, tugging the quilt his grandma made for him up over his shoulders. 

“Mind if I turn on a movie?” David asks. Patrick shakes his head and since it’s the middle of the night London time and he hasn’t slept well since the new year began, he lets himself drift off to sleep.

When David shakes him awake, it’s dark outside. “Why don’t you move to the bed?” he asks.

“What time is it?”

“Almost midnight. We both fell asleep.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, pushing the quilt back. “You take the bed. I don’t think I can sleep in it tonight anyway.”

David’s eyes flick toward the bedroom and then back; they look black in the dark room. “I should go home.”

“It’s too far.” Patrick tries to close himself back under the blanket as though that will settle this. “I know you don’t do couches. Take the bed.”

He hears rustling as David crouches next to him. A finger pulls down the corner of the blanket. His face is so close that all Patrick can see are his eyes.

“The best thing Stevie made me do was sleep in my own bed the first night after Oscar.”

“Fine. Stevie can make me do that tomorrow,” Patrick grumbles, reaching for the edge of the blanket. David pulls it back farther.

“I’ll tell her you said so. But please do. Otherwise you’ll have a bad back by the time you’re forty.”

“If I have a bad back by the time I’m forty, it will be because you used to let me carry all those boxes when we were setting up our store.”

“It’s not my fault compressed discs run in your family. In my defense, if it hadn’t taken me four years to find this out from your _mother,_ I would have helped sooner.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says. “I cleaned the sheets before I left so you should be all set up.” Then Patrick wrestles the quilt from his grasp and burrows back down under it, breathing in the lingering, comforting scent of his grandmother’s house. 

The sun is harsh when he wakes up. He fumbles for his phone to discover he slept almost ten hours uninterrupted. He almost forgets that David spent the night until he finds the note on the counter. 

_Left to cover the store. Eat something. Please._  
_—David_

Patrick smiles, digs a granola bar out of the cupboard, and sends David a picture of himself eating it. Then he crawls back into his cocoon on the couch and goes back to sleep.

* * *

Once the initial shock wears off, it doesn’t feel awful to be without Tim. He’s spent so much of the past year and more without him. But then his body starts to ache, like he knows he’s gone too many days. Like Tim should be back. And after that, for a long time, it feels awful and it rarely gets easier. 

The first postcard from Tim comes two months after Patrick returns home. On the front is a photo of a narrow alley in Edinburgh with a small sign above it that says Old Fishmarket Close. On the back, Tim wrote, _Thinking of you._

Patrick tucks it into his book, the last on the list Tim created for him. He’s working through the book slowly, even though he wants to know what happens. When he’s done, he’ll have to start looking for new stories and he’s not quite ready for that. 

He hikes up to Rattlesnake Point as much as possible. It’s one of his old favorite routes. He never did this trail with Tim. He said it was too overrun with tourists and that he preferred the steeper route and better views on Henry Point further north up the ridge. And it helps actually, to have a place to go that was never theirs. He feels like he can think more clearly up there; it’s easier to see the ways Tim was perfectly good but not perfect. 

It’s an unseasonably cold evening in May when Stevie finds Patrick barricaded among boxes in his living room. They’re supposed to run lines for _Come From Away_ , and he feels bad for losing track of time. It’s been really helpful to explore the overwhelming compassion of small-town Canada in the show now that he’s turned his back on the opportunity to leave it.

“Are you moving?” Stevie asks, looking around.

“No. Packing up Tim’s stuff. I’m supposed to donate almost all of the clothes he left here but not the books. Those he wants shipped halfway around the world.” The bite in his tone does nothing to hide his fondness, if Stevie’s face is any indication.

“Ooh, can I look through his t-shirts?”

“What?”

She seems to take him in again, and then she gives him an awkward pat on the back as she joins him among the boxes and starts loading up the books stacked on the coffee table. 

“Not that one,” Patrick says, reaching for _Gideon the Ninth._ “That one’s mine.”

Stevie eyes the skull-faced figure on the cover and raises a dubious eyebrow in Patrick’s direction. He’s not afraid of her, mostly, so he stares her down.

“There’s a bag of t-shirts in the closet,” Patrick says, gesturing vaguely through the bedroom door.

“Okay.” She disappears and Patrick runs a hand over the cover of the book. If he closes his eyes he can still smell the beach where he started reading it, can still hear Tim’s whisper in his ear. He places it carefully back on the shelf.

“You know I helped David do this once? It was a couple weeks after the Roses moved here. He didn’t have enough space for all his clothes so he was going to sell a few ‘pieces’ for money. He wanted to start by sorting them into piles by fit, fabric, and . . . something else. Nationality? That can’t be it.”

Patrick laughs and abandons the books to join her in the bedroom. “That sounds right actually. So did he sell them?”

“Oh no. I mean now that he’s figured out online consignment he’s sold some things. But we went to the thrift store on the edge of town and it took less than five minutes for David to tell Wayne, ‘You’ve lost my trust.’” Stevie does a spot-on David impression that has Patrick laughing. “Actually I think that was the same day he told me if I put cashmere in the washing machine, he’d bite my wrist. That was the day I knew I needed him in my life.”

“Hmm,” Patrick says. “I had a day like that. You know the night before I invited myself to be his partner, I stayed up until two in the morning googling things like ‘small business grants’ and ‘how to fill out a successful grant application?’”

Stevie stops rifling through the bag and turns to look at him, her eyes wide. 

“You can’t tell him that,” Patrick pleads. “It wasn’t like I’d never done it before. I just—At my old job there was a grant-writer on staff to help me.”

“Did you have a day like that with Tim?” she asks. Which is how Patrick realizes that she knows how he used to feel about David. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I had a lot of days like that with Tim.”

“Hmm.” Stevie seems to make a decision about something. She does a little nod and scoops up the small stack of t-shirts she pulled from the bag. “Okay if I keep these?”

“Sure,” Patrick says. He resists asking what she’s going to do with them. Sometimes it’s better not to know.

“Okay.” She stands and takes her stack to the door. “Let’s go finish up the books.”

* * *

Patrick finds out things are over between David and Maggie from Maggie. She calls him to reassure him it won’t affect their vendor relationship and confirms the next shipment. Lupe and Tai, their new employee in Schitt’s Creek, are both in today so he arranges for them both to cover the stores.

David is in the back applying his eye serum when Patrick arrives. 

“Of course she told you,” David says, because by now he can read Patrick’s motives before he says a word. “I’m fine. This fall semester is even worse than spring and I just needed to focus on it.”

“Okay,” Patrick says. “But just in case you’re not fine, the stores are covered so we’re going for a drive.”

“Do you think it’s a problem that we’re developing something of a tradition here?” David asks. 

Patrick shrugs. “I kind of like it.” 

David doesn’t argue when Patrick queues up the playlist over his car stereo. They both know the words to all the songs now, belting them out the open windows as the late fall colors whir by. The Elmdale Regency Mall is in the process of “reimagining,” so the food court is new, including a brand new Pretzelmaker in the shadow of the illuminated, oversized Hudson’s Bay sign next to it.

“This really is the ideal wallowing food,” Patrick says, leaning back in the metal café chair and taking a bite of pretzel. “Maybe my problem this whole time has been lack of mall pretzels.” 

“Still in the wallowing phase?” David asks. 

“I don’t know what phase I’m in. It’s weird how much one person can change you, you know?” Patrick muses. “I’ve been thinking lately about who I was ten years ago . . . trying hard at work, trying hard with Rachel, and it never occurred to me that I might be happier if I stopped trying. I used to think, with Tim, that if Past Patrick could see this one, there would be redemption or something. And now I don’t know what Past Patrick would think.”

“Hmm,” David says, and it sounds a little like empathy. “I used to worry about that all the time. What would Past David would think of me now.” 

“He wouldn’t be happy? Look at everything you’ve done.” 

David laughs. “He would be so disappointed to see me sitting here at Elmdale Regency Mall in such close proximity to Hudson’s Bay, much less contemplating stepping over the threshold to see if they still have the one good kind of socks on sale. But you know what? Fuck him.”

It’s Patrick’s turn to laugh. “I’ve always liked their socks.”

“Of course you have.” David tips his cheddar dipping sauce to get a better angle with the pretzel. When he looks back up, his eyes are startlingly direct. “What’s something you would never have done ten years ago that you can see yourself doing now?” David asks. 

Patrick considers the question. “I’ve always been open to trying new things. But I guess maybe something more permanent. Like buying a house or getting a tattoo.” David’s eyes go wide at that. “I mean ten years ago I was still dating Rachel. Not even engaged yet. My friend got a tattoo and I remember thinking there’s no way I would want to define myself with something permanent like that. It sounded terrifying.”

“Indeed.” David’s voice is sarcastic but his eyes are kind and soft. 

“What about you? Maybe you should buy a sweater or something at The Bay.”

“Let’s not go overboard,” David says.

“No I’m serious. I’ll get a tattoo; you’ll buy a sweater. You’re really getting the easier of the two. Something you would not have bought ten years ago. We’ll do it today. We’ll go to the store and while you’re trying them on I’ll look up a place nearby for my thing and we can go there next.”

“I’m not going to let you drop in to some disgusting tattoo parlor in Elmdale on a whim. You have to make sure you go to a good place, know exactly what you want, make an appointment. Maggie swears by Sydney down the street from you. I would get you contact info but.” He does a roll with his hand that is meant to convey the complicated nature of his relationship with Maggie now. “Anyway you could ask her for that.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, and feels a little rush of adrenaline at the thought. “On the plus side, I guess that leaves us more time to find you the perfect sweater.” 

David rolls his eyes but stands and tosses his garbage in a nearby bin. Once inside Hudson’s Bay, David makes a show of being appalled by the selection. Patrick catches him feeling a few of the knits and fabrics though, and pinching his mouth thoughtfully. 

David eventually takes a few options to the fitting room and tries them on with no small amount of muttering.

“Do I get to see these?” Patrick asks. 

“Absolutely not,” David says. 

“Fine. I’m going to go look around.”

Patrick makes a lap around the menswear section until his eyes catch on a dark sweater with thick ribbed knitting running horizontally across the upper half. The textures are interesting. It’s navy, but it looks more like David than any of the black and white sweaters he’s currently trying. 

Patrick takes it and knocks on the fitting room door. David pokes his head out with a glare and a “What!?” that does nothing to conceal his aggravation. 

“Try this one,” Patrick says, handing it to him. “I know it’s navy but the point was to find something you wouldn’t have worn ten years ago, right?”

“This is midnight blue,” David says, unfolding it and examining it with a furrowed brow. “Navy is more saturated.” 

His face makes about six transitions before he disappears into the fitting room with the sweater and Patrick smiles to himself. 

The fitting room is unusually quiet for a long time, interspersed with the lightest rustling of clothing coming off and on which feels suddenly very intimate. Patrick takes a few steps out of the fitting room to give David some space. 

David emerges at last, his smile tucked between his teeth, and says, “Let’s go.”

“Find something that works?” Patrick asks.

“Whose idea was this anyway? This isn’t making me feel better.” Unfortunately for David, Patrick knows that the increase in whining is a sign that it is in fact making him feel better. He heads to the check-out counter though and Patrick grins.

“You forgot the socks,” Patrick calls after him.

“No,” he growls with a finger pointed at Patrick.

When they get to the car with David’s purchase, he puts it in the trunk and takes out his school bag and arranges it on his lap in the front seat.

“What kind of tattoo were you thinking of getting?” David asks. 

“Oh, uh. I don’t know. I want it to mean like the next phase or a fresh start.” 

“Where?” 

“Oh. Probably my shoulder. I don’t want it to be visible for work.”

“Hmm.” David takes a cluster of pens out of his bag and discards them one by one until he’s left with a fine-tip permanent marker. “Can I?”

Patrick nods and swallows as David takes his wrist carefully in his hand. He sets his bag in his lap as a makeshift desk and sets Patrick’s hand on it. He brushes the surface to clear it of imaginary particles and starts drawing. 

Patrick watches as David marks a harsh line in dramatic zigs and zags on the inside of his forearm. His fingers are soft where he holds Patrick’s arm still and the pen tickles where it presses along the sensitive skin.

“I’m not—you can do whatever you want for the real thing, obviously,” David says.

“What are you drawing?” he asks. 

“It’s a branch of a cherry tree.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, because he doesn’t really know what that means. 

“In Japan, cherry blossoms are called _sakura_. They symbolize renewal and spring. Friendship.” David’s eyes flick up under heavy lashes and catch Patrick’s, and Patrick hopes David can’t feel the quickening of his pulse where his hand rests on his wrist. “The trees only bloom for a short period, and when they do, people gather with loved ones among the trees. The idea is to appreciate that moment for what it is, to not be too wrapped up in the concerns of the past or the future.”

David finishes the branch and begins adding leaves. Or flowers, really. At one end he draws small buds, which open and flower toward the other end. David caps the marker and digs in his bag again, coming up with a pink highlighter. As he fills in the buds and blossoms, he keeps going with the symbolism.

“The trees themselves are strong. On one of my trips to Japan, we visited Morioka where there is a cherry tree that grew out of a split in a boulder the size of my car. Cracked the whole thing in half. And yet they produce these really delicate and beautiful blossoms. I always liked that, softness from strength. Anyway I’ve been meaning to go to the botanical gardens when they bloom but Stevie ended up turning our last two attempts into meet-ups with potential dates, and I’m not going to walk around and admire them by myself like some pervert.”

There are so many ways to go with that, but Patrick opts for sincerity. “So you’ve never been?” Looking at the way David draws it from memory, Patrick wants to take him immediately. “When do they bloom?”

“Usually April or May.”

“We should go next year.”

David looks up from Patrick’s arm, eyes bright. “We should,” he says softly.

He puts the cap back on the marker and gives Patrick his hand back. “Wow,” he says, taking in the completed drawing. Even with the improvised tools it looks incredible. Patrick doesn’t think he wants it across his entire forearm permanently but he actually likes that he can see it. Even now it catches his eye when he reaches up to scratch the spot in front of his ear. The pink is interesting. It’s kind of thrilling actually to have something so soft and expressive across the hard muscle of his forearm.

“Do you have electives in your business program?” Patrick asks as he pulls out of the parking lot. This time they don’t turn on the music.

“Yes. Although last time I was fooled into taking Visual Evidence thinking it would be interesting and applicable and instead I ended up with two hours a week of learning how to make pivot tables and graphs.”

Patrick doesn’t trust himself to comment on that because, well. David making pivot tables generates a lot of possible comments. “Have you ever thought about taking a drawing class or something?” he asks instead.

“Am I that bad?” David asks.

“No. I just mean, maybe you would have fun trying something like that.”

“I tried four years of that the first time. And when it came time to finish my capstone project, my professor told me the positioning and sequencing of pieces was interesting and dramatic, or that it would have been if I’d had anything important to say.”

“Seriously?” David’s mouth twitches at Patrick’s disgusted tone. “That’s awful.”

“Hm. It was probably true,” David says. “Even when there were things I wanted to say, I would have never let myself say them. I was too worried about what everyone else was saying.”

“Maybe if you took the class then . . . this time you’ll have more to say.”

“Hm,” David murmurs again, and it feels like he says, “I might.”

They pull up in front of the store from the direction of Ray’s, and it makes Patrick think about walking across the street all those years ago, sleep deprived and anxious about pitching his idea of a partnership to David, desperately hoping that Alexis would be somewhere else. The cherry blossom drawing flashes through his peripheral vision as he turns off the car. It’s a reminder not to get too wrapped up in the concerns of the past and future, David said.

Then he turns to David and the idea forms in his head, on his tongue, all at once, escaping the grip of fear that usually closes his mouth before he can say more than he’s planned to say. “I want to come back and work here with you.”

A thousand questions flit across David’s face, each one accompanied by the tiniest of movements. He doesn’t ask them yet. He just nods and whispers, “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The original CD track list is in the Ch 5 end notes_  
>  SOMETIMES FEELINGS SUCK PLAYLIST  
> Tears Dry on their Own (Amy Winehouse)  
> Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Neil Young)  
> Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)  
> Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Bob Dylan)  
> River (Joni Mitchell)  
> Fare Thee Well/Dink’s Song (Marcus Mumford and Oscar Isaac)  
> Tear Down the House (Avett Brothers)  
> I Know It’s Over (The Smiths)  
> Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (Soft Cell)  
> Somebody That I Used to Know (Gotye, feat. Kimbra)  
> Skinny Love (Bon Iver)  
> Nothing Better (The Postal Service)  
> Strong Hand (Chvrches)  
> No Goodbyes (Leon)  
> Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)  
> Alaska (Maggie Rogers)  
> Bluebird (Sara Bareilles)  
> Grow as we Go (Ben Platt)  
> Nothing Compares 2 U (Sinéad O’Connor)
> 
> There is now a [playlist for this fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nb1SQIzvKwIjoaXgxr2MD) thanks to the lovely RhetoricalQuestions. Likerealpeopledo helped immeasurably in brainstorming songs for the original CD and the expanded playlist.


	10. 2025

Just before his lunch break on a cold April Monday, Patrick sorts through the mail until his fingers land on the postcard, one corner of it crunched. In bold red letters, _Grüsse vom Schwarzwald_ is stretched across a photo of a German village nestled in a wooded valley. It’s the first one he’s received in months. The message on the back is longer than the rest of them combined. 

_Greetings from the Black Forest. The woods remind me of Ontario except that you’re not here with me. I hope this finds you well wherever you are._  
_–Tim_

Patrick slips it under a magnet on the lockers he uses to keep his things sorted in the back hall. He takes down the previous one, a view of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and tucks it into the book with the others. He used to keep them all up but he can’t do that anymore. He’s trying to move on. And the Patrick who’s trying to move on can only handle so many reminders of Tim. He’s been on a few dates but no one that he really wanted to see for a second date or anything else. So he keeps trying.

Moving on from Tim is going about as well as all of his other plans have so far this spring. The botanical gardens are closed for some kind of erosion control and regrading project, so they can’t go see the cherry blossoms. Patrick is disappointed, but David has been so buried with school that it would have been a task to tear him away long enough anyway. Their initial plan of promoting Lupe to manage the Elm Valley store so Patrick could move back to Schitt’s Creek got delayed when she announced her pregnancy. Lupe will take over management when she comes back from parental leave in a little over a year, and the process of finding an interim manager is complicated by the same rigid criteria that David imposed on the search the last time. They’re supposed to start working on a business plan for the next ten years which might help them narrow down on the qualities that might be useful in a new hire, but until David’s done with school this summer, Patrick doesn’t see the business plan happening either.

Patrick locks the door behind him and sets off down the street for his regular lunchtime walk. The only thing that is sort of going as planned is the Main Street Business Association he’s trying to put together with the growing group of local businesses in Elm Valley. He likes to pop in and support the other stores, networking with those who have already joined and continuing to work on the few holdouts. He browses the books while Frances makes his coffee at Papier Café, a bookstore-coffee shop that Tim used to keep in business single-handedly. He checks on the supply of RA haircare products at Samson’s, which David insists is a terrible name for a hairdresser, even if it is the owner’s actual name. (“Samson lost his power when they cut his hair!” “Yes but how many people are even familiar with that story?” “Well, at the very least a lot of Christians, Jews, and Leonard Cohen.”) Patrick stops in the bank for cash even though he can use his phone for most transactions, just to say hi to Donna and Riley at the counter. 

During the afternoon lull, Patrick clicks through the latest batch of resumes on their online hiring portal and sends a few to David, even though they don’t even seem qualified on paper. Patrick is starting to think maybe he should just stick it out in Elm Valley until Lupe comes back. The idea makes his heart sink. It doesn’t really make business sense for both he and David to work in Schitt’s Creek, but he grew attached to the idea quickly and logic doesn’t seem to be talking him out of it.

The store’s phone beeps at him, interrupting his thoughts. “Hi, Rose Apothecary Elm Valley. This is Patrick.”

“Hi, I’m trying to reach Tim Stoker. Seems like maybe he lives above your store but his number isn’t working.”

The name still prickles along Patrick’s skin, more present than a memory.

“He doesn’t live there anymore,” Patrick says, and he hates that it still makes his voice thick even now that he’s well on the way to acceptance. 

“Okay well do you know how I can reach him? He paid for a coffee table more than a year ago but he never followed up on the design approvals and I need to know what I should do with it.”

“Can you just refund it?” Patrick asks. “He moved to London.”

“Yeah, no can do, man. I already have the materials and it’s way past the cancellation date. I could maybe work out a partial refund.”

Patrick grips the phone a little harder but tries to modulate his voice. “Tell you what. Send me the details and I’ll see if I can reach him.”

The email comes later that afternoon, along with the sketch that Tim was supposed to approve. Patrick forwards it to Tim with a question mark. He gets back a short response a few hours later.

_Keep it. It was supposed to be a gift for you anyway. Hope you are well._

Patrick’s current coffee table was a hand-me-down from Ray when he moved to his own apartment. It’s pretty ugly and too big for the space, so Patrick calls back the coffee table guy to finalize the order. He might as well keep it so the money doesn’t go to waste.

The carpenter drops it off on a Tuesday morning a couple of weeks later. He looks kind of familiar but Patrick can’t remember where he knows him; he meets a lot of people. The guy doesn’t introduce himself but he compliments Patrick’s sweater. Says it brings out his lips. 

Patrick manages a startled, “Well.” He is beautifully made and he looks at Patrick like he’s already seen him naked, which makes Patrick feel very, very aware of himself.

“Say, you know what?” he says as he’s leaving. “I was just planning on having a chill night in. But if you’re free, I’d love you to come by for a whiskey or . . . whatever?”

Patrick can feel the red creep up his cheeks. 

“Okay,” he says. “Uh. Where’s your place?”

The man grins. His mouth looks very competent. That’s a terrible word for a mouth but it’s all Patrick can think as he bites the corner of his lip and writes his address on a small notepad he keeps in his pocket. “Seven o’clock?” he asks, tearing it out. Patrick nods. “I’m Jake, by the way.

“Patrick.” 

Jake steps forward, which is the first time Patrick realizes he’s not already in his space. Why does it feel like he’s been in his space the whole time? Patrick isn’t really expecting the kiss even as Jake moves closer. And when it happens, it’s so easy, so casual, that Patrick feels like he must be imagining the way his body responds, like Jake set him on fire with a two-second press of lips. 

He still feels like he’s sizzling from it when he pulls up in front of Jake’s apartment later that night. He looks up at the mid-sized building and taps on the steering wheel. This is probably a bad idea. But every date he’s been on has shown him he’s nowhere near ready for something serious. Maybe whiskey and . . . whatever is the perfect way to get back into it. He’s not sure what the whole story is with Jake, but the stakes seem very low, and that seems nice actually. So he gets out and goes inside.

“Hi. Glad you could make it,” Jake says, opening the door. “Come on in. Make yourself at home.” 

Patrick sits on the low-slung leather couch and looks around. His apartment is utilitarian. A scattering of tools and equipment surrounds the door. The overhead lights are off, so the room is dim, lit by lamps and candles. There's a whole array of snacks; it seems like a lot for two people, actually. Low, pulsing house music plays through a sound bar on the wall. If Patrick had any doubt by what Jake meant by “whatever,” he’s sure now. He hopes his brain and his body can get on the same page about it.

“Great shirt, by the way,” Jake says, following the seam around Patrick’s shoulder with his fingertip. Patrick looks down at the snug-fitting short-sleeved button up and mumbles what he hopes sounds like some kind of thanks. Jake grabs the whiskey off the counter by the neck of the bottle and sits down with two lowball glasses. He pours Patrick a glass and watches him take a long sip like he’s assessing the potential for Patrick’s mouth.

Patrick sets down the glass and props an elbow on the back of the couch and wonders how this is supposed to work. “Anything you want to know about me?” Jake asks, taking a sip of his own whiskey. 

“You’re a carpenter?” Patrick asks, because he feels like he should at least get the bullet points before they . . . whatever. 

“Yes.”

“And, uh. Anything else you do in your free time?”

“Sure,” Jake says, and then doesn’t say anything else. “You?”

“I own the store below where you dropped off my table.”

“Right on,” he says. Patrick watches him lick his lower lip and then he smiles like he knows that Patrick is watching. Like he knows what Patrick is thinking.

Apparently they’re done talking because Jake places a hand heavy on his thigh, inching closer to his hip as he moves in. There’s nothing casual about this kiss. He kisses like sex, and the way his tongue licks into Patrick’s mouth feels like an ignition switch. 

“Can I?” he asks, a finger sending shivers up Patrick’s neck as it trails down his sternum and presses on the top buttoned button. Patrick nods, half-stupid in his quest to get back to Jake’s mouth. Jake works quickly, fingers releasing buttons and clearing fabric out of the way. Patrick has never been with anyone with a beard before. It tickles and scratches along his skin until Jake finds his nipple and teases it with his tongue. His nipples aren’t that sensitive but Jake is doing something that sends heat all the way down until he’s hard and aching. The sensations blend and build and he loses track of whether it’s teeth or lips or beard or hands that is causing them. 

Jake pauses and takes another sip of his whiskey, like he’s just getting warmed up. Maybe he is. Fuck, what if he is? Patrick is already hot to the tips of his fingers and toes. 

“The line work here is really nice,” Jake says, tracing his fingers along the cherry tree branch on Patrick’s arm. The tattoo starts on his lower bicep and wraps onto his upper forearm. The end of it is just visible out of his rolled-up sleeves on a normal day, but the whole thing is visible with the shirt he’s wearing tonight. 

Patrick’s brain and his body have been at war all night, but Jake’s fingers on this stretch of his arm kick his heart into gear. 

“Can we, uh . . .” Patrick puts a hand between them and sits back, taking the whiskey. “Sorry. Just need a minute.”

“No problem,” Jake says shrugging and sitting back, like Patrick isn’t half-naked in front of him, red from his mouth and his beard and the heat of his hands.

He’s conflicted and confused and he’s, god. He’s hard and his body feels like it hasn’t been touched properly in ages. He feels like Jake knows exactly what to do to it. He maybe needs this but he’s also worried that this is the last thing he needs.

“Can we step back a bit?” Patrick asks. “Sorry. You’re—well you know. What you are. It’s not you. I feel like we sorta glossed over some details.”

“Hey man, there’s no need to explain. It’s cool if you’re not feelin’ it.” It looks like it really is cool, and Patrick would like to bottle this man’s nonchalance. 

“No. That’s not it.”

“Okay.” Jake sits up with a wink and takes Patrick’s empty whiskey glass back to the kitchen. Patrick hastily rebuttons his shirt for a little extra cover. His dick has not gotten the memo about them taking a breather, and he adjusts it uncomfortably in his pants. 

Patrick is about to ask Jake another painfully dull question when there’s a knock at the door.

“I’m sorry, are we expecting someone?” Patrick asks.

“Oh yeah. I thought I’d invite a few friends to join us.” Patrick is grateful he opted to rebutton his shirt. 

A couple comes in, and then two minutes later Stevie arrives.

“Oh my god,” Stevie says when she catches sight of Patrick. 

“How do you know Jake?” Patrick asks, still trying to put the pieces together.

“How do _you_ know Jake?” she asks.

“He made my coffee table and invited me over. I thought it was for sex,” Patrick says under his breath.

“Oh it was.” Stevie grins and nods toward Jake, who is rubbing the backs of the first couple that arrived while he talks to them about the road construction on the highway.

A group of three arrives next, and Patrick looks at Stevie again. “How many people are supposed to be coming?”

“Probably at least six more.”

“Six?!”

“C’mon,” Stevie says. “I’m actually kind of hungry. I’ll text Twyla about pie.”

Patrick looks around at just the eight of them there and decides this is already way too many people. He adjusts his pants again and nods reluctantly. Apparently he can’t even make a simple hook-up go to plan.

They walk into Café Tropical to find David already at their usual booth. He’s hunched over his notebook wearing a pair of thick plastic frames and sipping a cup of coffee.

“You wear glasses?” Patrick asks, which is probably not the way he should start. 

“Hello to you too. They’re readers,” David says, peering at them over the top of the frames. Then a slow smile plays across his face. “And what are _you_ wearing? Is it new?”

“It’s not new,” Patrick says, looking down at his shirt. “I just haven’t worn it yet.”

“So it is new.” Patrick tries his best to look annoyed as David’s eyes drift down Patrick’s chest and linger on the tattoo on his arm. David went with him when he had it done but other than the part that peeks out of his work shirts, this is the first time David has seen it since it healed. Patrick is still keyed up from Jake’s attention; David’s gaze makes him feel flushed. 

“I thought you said you were studying tonight,” Stevie says, sliding into the booth as Twyla delivers their slices of pie.

“I am. I ran out of coffee. And by all means, join me, because two people talking at me uninvited will help me pass my midterm.”

“How many months until graduation?” Stevie asks, pulling out her phone.

“Two,” he says. “What are you doing?”

“Marking my calendar for when I can ask you a question without you biting my head off again.”

David glares at her over a sip of coffee.

“How’s the life drawing class going?” Patrick asks. 

David takes the glasses off which is mildly disappointing. He looks unfairly good in them. “It’s good. I got invited to do a piece for their end-of-year student exhibition.”

“Really? That’s great!” Patrick reaches for his hand but picks up his glass of water instead as David’s smile pushes its way out. 

“It’s just a student thing,” he says with a shimmy-shrug, but his smile persists.

“Between graduation, this, and your fortieth birthday, it’s going to be the Summer of David,” Stevie says. It gets the exact reaction she’s going for.

“We are not doing ‘Summer of David.’” 

David tries to take her phone but she hands it to Patrick who holds it out of reach. “I like that. Summer of David. We should make signs.”

“Absolutely not,” he says.

“Ooh, and flyers,” Stevie says.

“Billboards!” Patrick suggests. “Might as well go big.”

“I know you think you’re very funny,” he says. “But if I see anything that says ‘Summer of David’ I will never speak to either of you again.”

“I’ll call Alexis. We’ll workshop the name,” Patrick says.

“Oh my god. Okay well none of this is going to help me pass my Global Economics midterm so I’m going to go.”

“Does that mean you don’t want to know how I rescued Patrick from Jake’s?” Stevie asks. David sits back down with a flourish in a literal manifestation of chin hands.

“It was hardly a rescue.”

“He thought they were there one-on-one,” she says. Patrick attempts to convey with his face that he resents her tone. 

“He said he was going to have a chill night in,” Patrick argues. “Wait, you know Jake, too?” he asks David.

“Oh yes. I _know_ Jake. So does Stevie. We both dated him at one point.”

“Ah,” Patrick says. “The infamous throuple. So he’s just. Everybody’s ex then.”

“See, what you have to understand about Jake,” David says, stealing Stevie’s pie-loaded fork and pointing it in Patrick’s general direction before he puts it in his mouth. “Is that he’s everybody’s ex, and nobody’s ex.”

“Ah,” Patrick says.

“So Patrick,” Stevie says in that connivingly casual way she has. “I didn’t know you were dating again.”

David glares at her across the table and she shrugs sweetly at him. Patrick is used to the two of them having a second conversation composed entirely of grins and glares, so he doesn’t pay it much attention.

“I wouldn’t call what I was doing with Jake a date.” David’s coffee cup pauses on its way to his mouth before he finishes it in one gulp. Patrick watches the stretch of his neck as he swallows. “But I’m just . . . uh. Trying to find a way to get back out there I guess.”

“Well this was fun, but I really do need to actually study so. I’m going to go. Do that.” David busies himself with packing up his laptop. “Hope you two enjoy the rest of your evening. Try not to get invited to any more accidental orgies.”

“I was there on purpose,” Stevie says.

“I don’t think I was talking to you,” David says. 

“He’s just mad he wasn’t invited,” Stevie explains to Patrick.

“Okay!” David glares at both of them, eyes flitting back and forth. Patrick puts on his best innocent smile.

“Best wishes,” Stevie says.

“Warmest regards,” David growls on his way out.

“Poor guy,” Patrick says.

“I know. I’m excited to get David back after graduation, but I do enjoy how easy it is to wind him up now.”

“It is,” Patrick agrees. “Although in my experience it was pretty easy to set him off before too.”

“Speaking of graduation,” Stevie says as she focuses on crumbling the pie crust with her fork. “The Summer of David might be a good time to ask him out.”

“Wha-what?” The pleasant lingering warmth from the whiskey and Jake’s hands and the smile they trolled out of David turns immediately to ice. She doesn’t answer, just shrugs and pulverizes the rest of the uneaten crust. “It’s not like that between us anymore.”

“Anymore?” she asks, looking up. And now he’s caught.

“It’s been years,” he says. “It’s been years since I felt that way.”

“You broke up with Tim. You’re moving back to Schitt’s Creek. I sort of assumed that was why.”

“Stevie.” Patrick can’t craft a rebuttal. It’s not that simple, not that straightforward. How does he explain that he loves David more than he’s ever loved anyone, and that he still wakes up some mornings aching for Tim? How does he explain that it’s never been as easy as one or the other, that choosing to come home broke him, that he doesn’t want David to have to be the one to put him back together? How does he explain that he’s never had a friend like David, and he doesn’t think he can handle losing that on top of everything else? So he just says the same thing he already said. “It’s not like that between us anymore.”

“Okay,” she says. She looks up from the pie crust crumbs and searches him with her beautiful, concerned eyes. It seems unfair that she lulls him with sarcasm for days at a time and then pulls out sincerity as a weapon when he’s least expecting it. 

“It’s too big, Stevie. He matters too much. I'm not ready to . . . I don’t want to mess with that,” he confesses. His voice is small and her mouth curves upwards sympathetically. 

“Well if you are planning to ‘not date’ other people, would you mind finding someone besides Jake? I’d like one thing for myself.”

Patrick laughs and nods. Since she’s trying to help, he doesn’t point out that she wasn’t exactly going to have Jake to herself. “You got it.”

* * *

Even if they manage to refrain from taking out ads and putting up billboards, the Summer of David is a lot of fun. They drag out one of David's reluctant self-conscious smiles by cheering too loudly while he walks the stage during graduation. David is adamant enough about the correct and incorrect ways to celebrate one’s fortieth birthday that they forgo a large party and take him out for karaoke. Patrick and Stevie still manage to embarrass him with their duet of Huey Lewis and the News’s “The Power of Love,” which Stevie announces to the entire bar was released in the year David was born. David gets the last laugh when he tells them he actually turned forty two years ago in 2023. He seems very pleased with himself to have successfully kept the secret until this moment. Patrick gives him his gift anyway, a leather sketchbook cover custom-made by one of their vendors. David’s face when he opens it is worth the extra money Patrick paid for the monogramming and adjustable pen and pencil slots so they would fit the exact type David likes to use. 

It’s not that Patrick doesn’t think about asking David out, especially now that Stevie watches him like she knows it’s on his mind. But it’s not the same as it was when they first started working together. He has a lot to lose if David’s not interested. Or if he is interested but then it doesn’t work out. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t notice how gorgeous David is now that he wears more whites and taupes and grays, presumably to coordinate with the faint streaks of silver in his hair. It’s not as if he doesn’t remember what it was like to watch Oscar kiss David the way Patrick wanted to, like David deserved to be kissed. It’s not that he doesn’t know that David is about to have a lot of newly-free time and—Patrick learns at the student art exhibition—that a lot of people are willing to fill it. 

Like Emile, who kisses David on each cheek when he arrives at the gallery and gushes about David’s drawing as he inspects it through his tiny round glasses with pink-tinted lenses. Emile takes David by the arm to look at the other students’ works and says things like, “Look at how deep the colors are in this one. It feels so dimensional and tense,” and, “The extra contrast makes the subject’s eyes look like a deep sea at night under a reflective moon.”

Patrick takes advantage of Emile’s prattling to examine David’s work without him standing there watching. According to the placard next to it, it’s charcoal on paper. The work is large, almost a meter square. The paper is thick, possibly handmade, and mounted in the frame so the uneven edges are visible inside the border of the mat. The drawing itself is breathtakingly erotic. A moment of passion frozen in time even though it seems to be moving. There are two figures, one dark-haired and broad-shouldered, the other light-haired and narrower. Their muscles are stretched and in the flurry of the lines, it’s not clear where one body ends and the other begins. The longer he looks at it though, the more it looks like violence. Vengeance. It’s abstract enough that Patrick can’t decide which interpretation is correct, but the dark-haired man is clearly winning. There’s a set to his mouth that Patrick recognizes, and it digs at something deep inside him. 

David comes back without Emile, who is still busy telling someone in the far corner that their use of shadows is masterful. A Caravaggio for the new millennium or something equally hyperbolic. 

“This is the photographer,” Patrick realizes, looking at the title of the work. _Exposure_. David has been telling people all night that the figures are abstractions, not based on real people.

Alone with Patrick, David nods. “Sebastien.” He told Patrick the story on the road trip after he broke up with Oscar. It was one of many that night, but the pain that lived between the words was different. Patrick remembers the way it felt then, listening to David describe being exploited for his body and his mind and his power, how it felt to tear this man’s work off the walls of his gallery and to feel the walls close in around his heart until Oscar and Stevie and Patrick took them down one careful brick at a time. 

“I spent more time thinking about him while making this than I have in years.” David smiles softly as he says it, and Patrick thinks maybe the drawing isn’t about sex or vengeance. Maybe it’s just about what it says it’s about. Exposure.

“Emile says it’s about the struggle between the other and the self,” David says. Patrick doesn’t even try to hold back his snort.

“Emile seems great,” Patrick says, and he knows it sounds like a test, which is fine. It is a test.

“He’s not,” David says with a laugh. “He’s a terrible teacher. He doesn’t know anything about art.”

“He’s your teacher?” Patrick asks.

“Yeah. I thought you knew.”

“I thought he was—That you were . . .” Patrick attempts a gesture with his hands that makes David rear back.

“Ew. No. Once the after-party is over tonight I plan to never interact with him again.”

“Oh.” Patrick says. The corner of David’s mouth quirks up and his hands move like he’s fighting with them about what to say.

“What do you think it’s about?” David asks with a shake of his head like he can’t believe he cares, and then a nervous bite of his lip like he absolutely needs to know.

“Oh, I think I’m probably even worse than Emile at interpreting art. And I should go,” Patrick says. “I have a long drive back.”

“Yeah, okay. Have a good night.” David nods and pretends he’s not disappointed.

Patrick looks at the drawing one last time. “You know I did this icebreaker once at a business conference. We had to make eye contact with a random person for one minute. No talking. It was pretty weird at first. Uncomfortable, just sitting there wondering what they were thinking about whatever they saw.” Patrick traces his finger across the printed label next to the frame, over the slightly raised letters that say _Exposure_. “That’s what I think about when I look at this. I think it’s about letting someone look at you. Maybe they see fear or lust or victory or anger. Or maybe they see nothing. Maybe they see something you don’t mean for them to see at all. To me it’s about not being afraid of what they see.”

David’s mouth opens just slightly and his eyes go wide, crinkling at the corners where he has the beginnings of permanent lines forming. He tips his head forward just slightly. It might be a nod. Patrick smiles at him and taps the little sign before putting his hand back in his pocket. “Goodnight, David.”

“Goodnight, Patrick.”

* * *

Finally, _finally_ they find someone interested in the interim manager position at Elm Valley. His name is Freddie, no matter how many times David hints that he could also choose to go by his given name of Frederick. He’s in his early thirties and has been managing an upscale wine and liquor store for the last few years. He’s moving to the capital sometime next spring so worst case Patrick will only need to cover the Elm Valley store for a month before Lupe comes back.

Freddie is really good at his job. He learns quickly. Patrick thinks he can probably finish training him and be back in Schitt’s Creek in another month. He also flirts with Patrick mercilessly, which is flattering if slightly unprofessional. And then one day, Freddie just goes for it. Just asks him out to dinner, leaning toward him across the counter with a rakish smile that dares Patrick to say no.

Patrick says no. 

His failed attempt with Jake showed Patrick how badly he needed to be touched again. He's dated a few people since. It's nice to be touched, to be held. Even if it's just for the night. He knows eventually he wants more than that with someone. A relationship. But not yet. And he really doesn't want that with Freddie. Freddie makes him feel like he’s always on the defensive. It’s not in the charmingly bossy way that Tim used to issue stakes-free challenges either. Freddie will be here for six months, and Patrick is already looking forward to sending him off to Ottawa.

Patrick's first official day back in Schitt’s Creek is the last official day of summer. He wakes up at five in the morning and can’t get back to sleep, so he goes for a short hike before showering. The year before, summer disappeared into the fog of melancholy. This one has been pretty good by comparison, he thinks. As much fun as it was joking about the Summer of David, it’s been good to have his friend back.

He worries a little about how their friendship will fare working together again. This will be his first time actually running the store with David while they’re both single. And David doesn't let his business degree talk him out of taking risks when it comes to the store. If anything, he's been coming up with new ways they can expand and grow. Patrick always liked the way they balanced each other out. He hopes they still do. They’ve both changed a lot since the last time they worked in close proximity. 

He thinks about wearing something different just to mark the day, but what he wants most is to feel the way he always does at the Schitt’s Creek store. To feel like he’s home. So he puts on one of his dark blue button-ups and the dark jeans that are snug but not tight. He rolls up the sleeves, smiling at the opening bud of the cherry blossom that peeks out of his sleeve. Then he grabs his bag and stops downstairs to leave a note for Freddie and Tai. He opens the windows in his car and sings along to the new Arcade Fire album all the way to Schitt’s Creek.

Patrick is still a half-hour early but he’s anxious to start the day. He puts his things in the back room and starts refilling baskets of stationery on the side wall near the cash. David comes in five minutes before opening, which has to be an hour earlier than usual for him, removing his white-rimmed sunglasses and hesitating by the door with a shy smile. He’s wearing a leopard-print sweater that looks . . . he looks really hot.

“Hi,” he says in that voice he has that used to send Patrick. It's low and breathy and Patrick liked to imagine it was full of unsaid things. 

“Hey.” Patrick sounds a little out of breath himself.

David does a slow walk to where Patrick is standing and hugs him as tightly as he can when they both have things in their hands. Patrick has to laugh to let out some of the nervous energy.

“So someone’s been busy,” David says, looking around.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ve been up since five. Could not sleep. Been thinking about . . . stuff. You know. Today.”

David nods, his smile begging to break free.

“It’s good to walk in and see you here,” David says, and then the smile spreads across his face. “Really good.”

“It’s good to be back,” Patrick says. And now they’re kind of just grinning at each other like fools. 

Roland knocks on the door and points at his wrist even though he’s not wearing a watch.

“I forgot about that, though,” Patrick says, nodding toward Roland.

“Oh yeah. He’s here every Monday at nine.” David follows Patrick’s gaze to the door where Roland is peering inside impatiently. David turns back with an apologetic grimace. “Regrets?”

“No,” Patrick says. “No, no. No regrets.”

David nods and Roland knocks again. David rolls his eyes which gets his whole body moving as he turns and walks back toward the door. Patrick watches him turn the deadbolt and flip the sign to open and then watches him help Roland select the right gift for Rollie’s teacher’s birthday. Patrick smiles to himself. No regrets.


	11. 2026

The Product of the Week display was Patrick’s idea, so naturally David hates it. 

“It clutters up the cash!” David says, waving his hands around in what Patrick assumes is meant to convey the chaos wrecked by the tidy stack of hand cream on the corner of the counter.

“You’re the one who recommended pushing the hand cream for February and March because it’s better for dry skin than the lotion.”

“We can push the hand cream when it’s sitting here, next to the other skincare products,” David says, and god. He’s just beautiful all worked up and tense and pushing back just for the joy of pushing back. Patrick thinks every day he’s going to come to work and he’ll be used to it, used to sharing space with David Rose. He hasn’t gotten used to it. Not once in ten years. David is still talking as he passes his hands over the area on the table where the hand cream normally lives, but the gesture starts from his hips which emphasizes the tight jeans he's wearing today with the holes in the knees. His sweater moves with his arms. It looks soft. Patrick thinks maybe he could just walk over and put his— 

“And now you’re not even listening,” David says, a hand on one hip and the other flailing through the air in disgust. “So.”

“I did this at the Elm Valley store. People came in just to try that product. We always sold more of the POW than we sold of that same product during the weeks before or after.”

“Um, excuse me. Pow? What’s pow?”

“Product. Of the. Week. P-O-W. POW.” Patrick isn’t even bothering to hide his smile. They play this game about something every couple of days. It’s his favorite part of being back at the store. 

“Is this a joke? Is Stevie going to pop out of the back or . . .”

“Yes. She has a costume and everything.”

“Mmm,” David says, nodding and letting his own smile emerge at the corners of his mouth.

“It doesn’t have to go right here at the cash. But I can show you the increased sales data and now that you have your fancy business degree you can’t pretend you don’t understand.”

David plants his hands on the counter, leaning toward Patrick so their eyes are at the same height. His face is slowly overtaken by the smile that starts in the depth of his eyes. “What if my fancy business degree allows me to spot an error in your calculations?”

“Doubtful.” For one reckless moment, Patrick thinks, _I could kiss him._ David is so close and his smile is soft and inviting and Patrick thinks maybe, _maybe_ David would kiss him back. “You’re welcome to look and see what you can find,” he says instead, reaching for his laptop that he keeps under the counter. 

If he kisses him, it shouldn’t be like this. Not spur of the moment. Because this is not like before. Before was a crush. Before was letting himself notice a cute guy who he didn’t know that well and wanted to know better. Now he knows him. He _knows_ him. He has an idea of what he’s missing out on if he doesn’t say something, and he knows exactly what he’ll lose if he does say something and it doesn’t work out. If he wants this to work, he has to make a plan.

“We will try it for one month,” David decides, eyeing the display on the end of the cash.

“Good,” Patrick says. 

“But we are never, ever calling it POW. Not publicly, and definitely not privately.”

“I think it’s kind of catchy.” Patrick knows he’s pushing it, but David’s smile spreads because they’re both in on the game now.

“It’s awful and you have _never_ called it that before today and you know it.”

David is right, of course, but Patrick can’t tell him that. Unfortunately the bell on the door announces a customer so David gets the last word. For now.

* * *

Patrick closes his laptop as Freddie stands up and eases into his Burberry coat. Patrick knows it’s Burberry because Freddie and David delayed the start of their meeting with a ten-minute conversation about the Burberry Spring/Summer Collection.

Freddie will be moving once Lupe comes back full-time in May. So far the best thing about Freddie, from Patrick’s perspective, is that his presence has allowed Patrick to be back in Schitt’s Creek. David, on the other hand, seems to think there are lots of best parts about him. 

Patrick is still loading up his bag to head home when he sees Freddie give David a quick kiss on the cheek and murmur something about messaging him later to finalize their plans. Then he waves at Patrick and he’s gone.

A hundred questions press forward at once until one of them pushes through. “What was that?”

“What was what?” David asks, going to the small refrigerator to take out his water bottle. 

“David.”

He shrugs. “What? We have plans this weekend.”

“Plans.”

“Yes. The Elmdale Arthouse is doing a month-long series of fashion films. This weekend they have the new documentary about Alexander McQueen. He asked if I wanted to go.”

“He asked if you wanted to go.” Patrick knows he should do something besides just repeat what David says but he doesn’t know how to ask the question he wants to ask. “So like as a date?” Or maybe he does.

“I guess,” David says with a shrug. 

“So you’re dating our manager.”

“I’m not _dating_ him. We have one maybe-date.”

“He just kissed you.” Patrick’s voice is a little too loud, his shoulders a little too tense. He should fix that.

“On the cheek. I think that’s just how he is.” David says it very slowly. He is looking at Patrick like he’s overreacting. Is he overreacting? He’s probably overreacting.

“He’s never kissed me,” he argues, because he’s overreacting.

“Maybe because you told him you weren’t in the right place to start a relationship right now,” David says. Which. The way he says it is . . . odd. Irritated maybe. Or . . . something else Patrick can’t place.

“Well that’s obviously not what you told him,” Patrick says.

“No. I told him I would love to go to the movie with him. Because I want to see the movie and who else in my life here would enjoy a two-hour deep dive on Alexander McQueen?”

“David, he works for us. Didn’t we go through this once with Maggie? You can’t just go around kissing people you work with!” And oh, Patrick is saying too many things now.

David turns, water bottle halfway to his mouth, and looks at Patrick so, so carefully. “He’s only here for one more month. He kissed me one time. We are going to one movie. What am I missing?”

“I just don’t get a good vibe from him,” Patrick tries. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t plan to get invested here. It’s not like I’m going to run off to Ottawa with him.”

“I’d be pretty pissed if you did considering I turned down Tim’s offer to move to Toronto.”

“I’m sorry, you turned down what offer?” And Patrick feels the second it happens, feels the air in the room crackle with a coming storm as this turns from a stupid argument to a serious one. He can practically see David batten down the hatches. 

Patrick closes his eyes and breathes in. “It was just an idea we had. An idea Tim had, really.”

“Okay, you know what, you don’t need to explain yourself,” he says, like he’s trying to convince them both.

“I think that I do.” The last thing Patrick wants is David spiraling about this.

He takes a sip of water and sets his bottle down, and the fact that he’s still calm is rattling Patrick more than anything else. “No. I know you do, that’s just what I’m supposed to be saying in the moment. So, please continue.“

Patrick tries pleading with his eyes but David just looks at him, so fucking bold and stubborn. He’s gorgeous in motion, but he’s breathtaking and mildly terrifying like this, totally still and ready to pounce.

“Well." Patrick half-sits on the corner of the table. "Tim found a job in Toronto. He asked if I would move there with him. He thought I could keep my share in the store and help you run it from there. It was supposed to be a win for everyone. I thought about it for a couple of months, and then I told him no.”

“Whoa. A couple of months? And you didn’t think to tell me about this?” Patrick walks toward him but he backs away. “So you and _Tim,_ who does not work here, concocted a plan for you to run _our_ store from Toronto.”

“It wasn’t a plan yet. It was just an idea.”

“And you what . . . just didn’t think I needed to know about it? I told you when I started taking classes that it was okay to leave if you wanted to. I didn’t realize I needed to specify that I should be informed ahead of time.” Patrick tries to answer, apologize, anything. The words feel stuck to the roof of his mouth. “No, please tell me. In your _months_ of thinking, how was this going to work?”

“We hadn’t figured that out yet,” Patrick says. “I wasn’t thinking I would leave right away. We would have time to figure it out.” 

“We would have time to figure it out,” David echoes. “So you and Tim were going to figure it out and just tell me what you decided.” It’s not a question.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it,” Patrick says. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” David is not calm anymore. He’s angry and maybe hurt and Patrick wants to take it all back.

“Maybe, ‘Hey, David, I’m thinking about moving to Toronto.’” He does an annoyingly good impression.

It sounds so easy when he says it, and Patrick wishes there was some way to explain how he felt when he was trying to make a decision. Some way to explain how very hard it felt to think about, much less talk about. David moves a chair two inches to the right, like he just needs to tell one thing in the room what to do.

“I know this was a choice about your life, but it was also a big decision about our business. I thought we made those decisions together. And to find out we don’t . . . I’m so fucking—You should have talked to me. If you had I would have told you—“

“To go.” They say it at the same time. Patrick continues, “I know. But I didn’t want to go. And I didn’t go. There was nothing to tell.”

David is unearthly still for so long Patrick starts to reach for him. And then he breathes out and speaks, his voice thin and charged like the air right before a lightning strike. “You should have told me you were thinking about it.”

“I know,” Patrick agrees. David shakes his head and blinks hard. Patrick fumbles for something, anything to say to fix this. “I wanted to tell you. I did. But I'm _here._ This is practically ancient history. What does it matter if—”

“No.” David presses his hands into the table between them, his fingers white around the edges. He looks up at Patrick with eyes dark and unfathomable. “It matters because you broke up with Tim so you could stay here. Do you have any idea what kind of pressure that puts on me?”

“Pressure?”

“You were devastated. For months and months you were so—fuck. Some days I think you wish you were still with him. And to find out you broke up with him because you wanted . . .” David looks toward the store they built together and shakes his head. “I feel like I have to make this worth it, somehow.” 

“It’s not your job to—I mean you do. Already you do.” 

David tips his head back and blows out a breath. “What if you told me about this idea and I _had_ asked you to stay?”

Patrick can’t answer that. He doesn’t know what he would have done then. If it would have pulled him toward David or pushed him toward Tim or sent him in another direction entirely. “What if you told me to go?” Patrick counters. “I didn’t think I could bear it if you told me to go.”

David squeezes his eyes shut as he nods. “I think I need some time. With this.” 

Patrick looks at him, at his hands balled into fists and his shoulders sharp-edged and tense and realizes he did that. It was unintentional, but the intent hardly matters now. The damage is done.

“All right,” Patrick says. 

He leaves, walking through the familiar space, and every step feels like he’s fighting against a current. He doesn’t even get to the front door before he turns around. David looks up from the table when Patrick comes back into the office, eyes already damp. 

“You want to know the real reason why I didn’t talk to you about this? I didn’t tell you on the off chance you’d been doing what I’ve been doing all these years. If I decided to leave, I didn’t want you to wonder forever if you should have asked me to stay.” 

David lets out a noise, maybe a gasp, maybe a sob. “What do I even do with this? How do I . . .” He trails off, shaking his head.

Patrick knows this is so not the moment for the thing he’s been trying not to say. David does not do well with surprises, especially consecutive surprises. But he can’t go through it all again, watching David date and fall in love with someone else, without saying it. So he says it anyway. “David. Let’s not do the shoulds and what ifs anymore. Have dinner with me. Let’s just . . . I want to be the one who takes you to the movie.”

David’s face changes so fast and yet Patrick feels like time slows so he can see every twitch of muscle and shift of expression. He can’t read a single one of them. “Now? After all this time you pick now? How can you ask—” He makes a strangled sound and Patrick hears it in his gut. “Have you not listened to anything I’ve said in the last thirty minutes? Have you not listened to anything _you’ve_ said?” 

Patrick thought . . . He doesn’t know what he thought. Maybe that if he ever got up the nerve to ask, David would say yes. That surely with everything between them, he would say yes. No matter what. So when he doesn’t, Patrick feels like the world shifts beneath him. Patrick nods and covers one of David’s hands on the table with his own and squeezes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he says. And then he leaves.

* * *

Patrick sends David apology flowers and gets a thank-you text. But ultimately David asked for space and Patrick doesn’t want to smother him. He still lives above the Elm Valley store so he asks Tai if they can trade for a week or two and works downstairs. It means he has to work with Freddie, but if he helps make this better by giving David the space he asked for, then it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make. 

On his day off, Patrick drives himself to the Elmdale Regency Mall for a pretzel. He can’t bring himself to stay there long enough to eat it. This isn’t a breakup anyway. It’s maybe worse. Too much for one pretzel to fix.

Patrick feels like an idiot for asking David out like that. It was self serving and desperate and Patrick is embarrassed. It must have felt to David like an act of desperation too, even though it’s something Patrick has wanted desperately for months now. Maybe years if he’s being brutally honest with himself. But at least now he has his answer. He just has to hope that with enough time, they’ll be able to get back to something close to what they had.

When Lupe comes back from parental leave, Patrick draws out the transition as much as possible. He drives her crazy explaining the new point-of-sale program ad nauseum. But finally he has to leave her to it. 

On Patrick’s first day back in Schitt’s Creek after their argument, David comes in about an hour after opening and sets his bag down by the door. “So. After some time alone . . . I just wanted to come here and say that I think we can figure this out.” He looks younger and more vulnerable than he has in a long time. “I’m not . . . I wish you would have included me in that conversation. But maybe that’s not as important as where we go from here.”

“I would have told you the second I decided,” Patrick says. 

“Yeah. I just don’t want you to feel like you have to stay here for me,” David says. “You should be here because you want to be.”

“I _do_ want to be here. I mean look at you. You don’t even need me anymore. I’m just hanging on to your coattails.” Neither of them believes it, which helps diffuse the awkwardness. 

David does a little shake of his body in response, like shaking his head isn’t enough. “That might be taking it a bit too far.” David looks at the table behind Patrick and wrings his hands. “And about the movie or. Um.”

“Oh, yeah. I shouldn’t have asked in the middle of all that. It was rash and unprofessional. And anyway. It’s probably better if we just focus on the business and not push anything.”

David tips his head, surprised. “Okay, s-so you would like to focus on the stores then?”

“I think that’s probably a good idea. But hey. It’s good to be back.”

David nods and picks up his bag, shaking his head like maybe that all went easier than he expected it to. 

It’s still weird for the rest of the day, for the week. For weeks. Patrick tries his best to be professional. To be normal. To help them both get used to being coworkers again. 

His birthday party comes closer to being a surprise than any others have in recent years, mostly because David is still so careful around him. Patrick half-expected he just wouldn’t do it. But it helps actually, the tradition reminding them what they’re working toward, the years of the friendship they’re trying to recover. 

Things get better after that. On most days it even feels a little like it did before with the teasing and playfulness and laughter. On other days it tears at him still. The what if. What if he had waited and asked David the right way? Maybe he would have gotten a different answer. But the closer they get to how it was before, the less willing Patrick is to risk it all again. And maybe this is okay. What matters most is that he has the store and his friendship with David. He will just have to start looking elsewhere for the other things he wants.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Rose’s fiftieth wedding anniversary kind of sneaks up on him. It’s not that he doesn’t know it’s happening. David rented out Graydon Manor, a nearby estate, and has been stressing over the party with Alexis for almost a year. Patrick has witnessed many a video call about the event, all of them conducted at a level of volume and intensity that is specific to the Rose sibling bond.

So the party has always been sort of on the periphery for months until one weekend, it’s here. The Roses come into town the day before. Moira attempts to shoplift, which makes Patrick insane and insanely fond. Johnny, still dapper in a gray suit and whitening hair, hands Patrick a twenty-dollar bill that covers about half of what she owes and Patrick decides to let it slide. Now that they only come to town a few times a year, he can afford to subsidize. David hustles them out under the guise of last-minute logistics before they can underpay for anything else. 

Patrick decides to go to the party by himself so he can leave whenever he wants to. He bought a new suit for the occasion, which was maybe overkill, but it looks good he thinks, making a final inspection in the mirror.

The venue is really nice. It’s a big stone house with manicured gardens. David has made it even more beautiful, from the floral arrangements to the menu to the music and decorations. Alexis catches Patrick seconds after he arrives.

“Don’t you look adorable in your new suit,” she says.

“Oh, thanks. And thanks for the advice on which one to get.”

“You’re. So. Welcome,” she says, booping his nose with each word. 

“So how’s L.A.?” he asks, and that’s all it takes to get her going. She hooks her arm in his as she talks and pulls him toward the family table where David and Stevie are talking to Mr. and Mrs. Rose. David is wearing a narrow-cut suit with some kind of swirly glossy-on-matte texture to the fabric. The low sheen of the pattern catches in the twinkling lights. At some point Patrick is going to have to stop noticing how David looks all the time, but not tonight. He looks too good to ignore tonight.

“I should probably go find a seat,” Patrick says. The whole town must be here; it’s a big crowd.

“You’re sitting with us, obviously,” Alexis says. Patrick isn’t sure what’s obvious about it but he doesn’t argue. He says hello to Mr. and Mrs. Rose and David and Stevie and sits down, taking a nervous sip of water. 

As the food is served, Stevie asks the Roses how they met, and Patrick finds himself surprisingly touched as Moira recounts watching Johnny charm some mutual friends across a party until she finally asked, “Who’s the eyebrows buying everyone’s drinks?” 

“Of course I was with someone at the time,” Mr. Rose says.

“Belinda Bloomberg,” Mrs. Rose says, pushing out each B with a staccato cadence and a conspiratorial look around the table. Alexis mouths the name with her at the same time—apparently this is a well-known piece of family history—and she and David make matching bitten-down, wide-eyed smiles across the table. “But I bided my time. I knew there was something between us. I just knew it. Whatever it was, it was worth waiting for.” 

“Poor Belinda Bloomberg,” David says, resting his chin in his palm with a smile. 

“Now son, I let her down easy. And she’s very happy and living in Malibu now, last I heard.”

“When did you last hear?” David asks. “1981?”

“You know David, sometimes the choices aren’t clear until after you’ve made them. But once I finally made it, I never had any doubt.” 

Patrick catches David’s eye across the table and he thinks—it’s hard to tell in the soft candlelight—but he thinks David’s mouth curves just slightly into a smile before his eyes flick back to his dad. 

“Yes let this be a lesson to you all that something that feels like a gamble can usher in fifty mostly felicitous years,” Moira says, raising her glass and taking a drink in her own private toast.

Johnny gives his wife a look of such open affection that Patrick feels a little voyeuristic watching it. He finds himself looking at David again, and this time he’s watching his parents with glassy eyes. “Well on that note, I think I’d like the first dance,” Johnny says, standing up. 

“Okay but the dancing isn’t scheduled to start for five more minutes,” David says. They just wave him off and take to the dance floor.

David smiles as he watches them sway. For all their differences, they look good together. After a while, the Schitts and Ronnie and Karen and Bob and Dot join, and then Alexis pokes at David until he joins her on the dance floor too. 

“Do you ever look at them and wonder ‘How the fuck did I end up loving that weird family so much?’” Stevie asks. Patrick laughs so loudly it draws David’s attention; he looks over and smiles at them.

“Every day,” he says. “Wanna dance?”

She takes his outstretched hand and they join half the town on the dance floor. When the song changes, Alexis pulls Stevie out of Patrick’s arms. 

“I have to use the bathroom and I don’t want to be, like, murdered in there,” she says by way of explanation.

“And you think I’m going to stop it?” Stevie asks, and then smiles as Alexis huffs audibly and drags her off.

Patrick is about to head back to the table when David holds out a hand.

“Dance with me until they get back?” he asks. There’s only one possible answer to that question, so Patrick nods. David’s hand presses warm against his back as his other closes around Patrick’s palm. He’s close enough that his suit jacket brushes against Patrick’s as they sway. It feels so good in his arms. It’s all Patrick can do not to rest his head on his shoulder. He probably should not have had the last glass of champagne. David’s thumb sweeps back and forth against Patrick’s hand as the chorus of “Let It Be Me” floats over the dance floor in Ray LaMontagne’s smoky voice. 

_“That's when you need someone,_  
_Someone that you, you can call,_  
_When all your faith is gone,_  
_It feels like you can't go on,_  
_Let it be me, let it be me.”_

“I’m sorry this has been a bit of a weird year,” David says, his voice falling soft and light into the space between them.

“Me too,” Patrick says. “It went quick, huh?”

“It did. If you ever decide you want to do something else with your life, please tell me. I don’t want to keep you from things that make you happy. Or scare you from telling me because I was . . . excitable.”

“Hmm,” Patrick laughs at the word choice. “Okay. But for the record, I am happy. That’s why I stayed.”

“Okay,” David says, and Patrick lets him read the lines of his face for the first time in several months, because it’s true. He still has things he wants, but he’s happy here. Right here. 

“David, I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay here just because I chose to stay here either. Or that you have to make this somehow worthwhile for me. I knew what I was choosing. But it’s okay if you want to do something different with your life.”

“Okay,” David says. “I don’t, though.”

Patrick smiles at him and nods. _I could kiss him,_ Patrick thinks, like an old habit. And possibly a destructive one. So he just closes his eyes for a minute and lets the song fill the silence. 

“Hey,” David whispers, his breath warm against Patrick’s ear. “Do you want to get a drink or something after this?”

“I’d like that,” Patrick says, because he would.

The song changes to something more upbeat and Patrick lets go reluctantly. Roland pulls David away to answer a question about the sound system and Patrick watches him go, hands gesturing wildly in exasperation. 

After the next song, the dancing is interrupted for cake. Roland makes a toast that is equal parts sweet and cringy. But then he talks about meeting the Roses for the first time, and says that seeing how much love Johnny and Moira had for each other is what made him know he could trust them. And after that all of the Roses get a little teary.

The dancing resumes as Ronnie settles in the chair next to Patrick to start stoking their winter curling rivalry. When James Morrison’s “Precious Love” starts pumping out over the speakers, Mrs. Rose, who is a little tipsy at this point, points at Alexis and David and backs onto the dance floor, pulling them with her. Whatever she says to them makes them both blush and grin, and then Mr. Rose gathers them all into his arms.

Patrick would like to have drinks with David after, but this is looking like it’s going to keep going for another hour or two and someone has to open the store in the morning. And anyway, he’s feeling a little bit fragile after spending those few minutes in David’s arms, his voice softly in his ear. Just watching him happy and dancing with his family makes him tear up. Sometimes he feels like he’s living a parallel life, like he’s just bumping along the edge of the one he wants. That feeling has never been stronger than right now. Drinks might not be the best thing to layer on top of that. 

Stevie pops up next to him, interrupting his thoughts. “C’mon, you should be out there too,” she says, pulling on his arm. 

Patrick looks back to where David and Alexis are twirling each other and Mr. Rose is doing some kind of finger guns dance routine. Whatever Stevie sees when he looks back at her makes her smile fade. “I’m tired. I think I’m going to go actually.”

Stevie looks at him with pursed lips and a knowing eye and nods. “If you asked him out again, I’m sure he’d say yes,” she says.

Patrick shakes his head. “I was sure he’d say yes the first time.” 

She gives him a little pat on the back, her face twisted. He wishes she was easier to read. Then she nods with a quiet, “Okay,” and goes back to the party. 

From the door, Patrick messages David goodbye and asks about taking a rain check on drinks. He watches as David takes his phone out of his pocket and his face goes serious for a minute. He looks up and his eyes scan the room until he finds Patrick. Patrick waves and smiles, and David smiles and waves back with a tight nod. Then Mr. Rose claps him on the back and pulls him toward Ray's photo booth and out of sight. When he gets in his car to go home, Patrick texts him one more time. 

_Thanks for the dance._

David’s reply comes in seconds. 

_Anytime._


	12. 2027

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 84 years dot gif . . . Enjoy.

Patrick gets out of the shower and pulls on a pair of boxer-briefs while he finishes getting ready. He trims down his stubble and rubs a little moisturizer into his hands before spreading it across his cheeks and forehead. He puts just enough product in his hair to keep it from becoming totally unruly by the end of the night. 

It feels like not that long ago that he was planning to spend his fortieth birthday working in business development in Cedar Grove before coming home to celebrate with his wife and two-ish kids. But it has been a long time, really. A lot has changed since then. 

The cherry blossoms on his arm catch his peripheral vision as he pulls on his black henley, pushing the sleeves partway up his forearms. He smiles at himself in the mirror at the memory. It’s been a process over the last year, admitting to himself how much he had wanted David, how much he still does, and then figuring out how to protect both of them from that. He knows he’s been a little more distant with David than he would like to be lately. But Patrick has a date next week, his first one in a long time. A friend of a friend of a friend. He’s not really looking forward to it but. Maybe it will be what he needs to restore the balance in his life.

He brings in the mail before he leaves for the café and smiles when he sees the postcard. He hasn’t gotten one since his birthday last year. This one is from the British Museum in London, Tim’s favorite place in the world.

_I thought it appropriate to visit this house of ancient antiquities in your honor on the momentous occasion of your 40th birthday. Soon enough you’ll fit right in here among the relics. Hope you have a really wonderful time at the party. Don’t forget to act surprised._  
_—Tim_

Patrick’s laughter echoes down the back hall. He’s getting a lot of shade about his age today. But he feels great, actually. Like a whole new set of possibilities is about to open for him. It’s a good time to make different choices maybe. Or make choices differently at least. Be less worried about what he’s supposed to choose. 

He tucks the postcard into the box with the others. Tim messaged him recently about a long kayaking trip he is planning to take around the Great Lakes next summer with his partner. Way more fun than wedding planning, they decided. They might rent a car and drive over for a visit if they want a break. They might not. Either way, Patrick is glad to finally feel nothing but happy for him.

The drive to Schitt’s Creek is pretty at this time of day, the setting sun turning the fields outside his window into sweeping golds and vibrant greens and crisp yellows. 

He parks and eyes Café Tropical through the windshield. The lights are turned down low as usual. Even if it is more of a running joke than a surprise at this point, he looks forward to this night every year. 

But when Patrick walks into the café, he is surprised. The lights David uses every year are hung, and soft music plays, but the café is empty except for David sitting alone at their usual booth. 

Patrick’s step hitches, but David’s smile pulls him forward.

“Hi . . .” Patrick says, and he’s filled with questions and maybe, maybe hope. 

“Hi,” David says.

“Um, David, I don’t think this is how surprise parties work,” Patrick says, sitting down. 

“Yeah, I know,” David says, and his face flushes into the silver streaking up his hair and the hope in Patrick’s chest blooms. “About that . . .”

Twyla appears and delivers crab cakes with mango salsa and roasted vegetables and then hands David the key and asks him to message her when they are finished. Patrick’s heart is pounding now.

“Um . . . champagne?” David asks, holding up a bottle. Patrick manages a nod and David takes his glass. 

“David.” David just nods as he pours, like he’s getting to it. So Patrick digs up whatever patience he can find. He doesn’t want to ruin this, whatever it is.

He hands Patrick his glass and then sits back, pressing his fingers along the edge of the table as he breathes out. His smile when he looks up makes Patrick’s stomach swoop. “So unfortunately none of your friends could make it?” he says falsely, and Patrick laughs. It helps.

“One did,” Patrick says and David’s mouth twitches up at the corners.

“Out of pity, mostly,” David says, but his eyes are looking at Patrick like there’s nowhere else he would rather be. “Here. Eat.”

Patrick takes a little of everything from the shared plates but he’s too nervous to eat much. “So is this what I can expect going forward? All my friends abandon me? Except of course the one who feels obligated to—”

“Why did you turn down Tim’s offer to move to Toronto?” David interrupts, turning serious. So they’re doing this. 

“I told you.” Patrick is caught off guard, but he’s also had this conversation with David a hundred different ways in his head. Most of those ways seemed too scary to do in real life, but now that they’re doing it, it doesn’t seem scary anymore. 

“You told me you didn’t want to go. I’m guessing you didn’t stay for the cuisine at Café Tropical.”

“No,” Patrick laughs. “Although this is very good.” David nods and takes a bite. “Why do you think I stayed?”

“Well as much fun as I assume it is to lose to Ronnie at sports and traverse greater Ontario on foot, I have it narrowed down I think? Either you’re really into the store. Or me. And no offense to the store but that seems a lot less likely to me.”

“Hmm,” Patrick laughs and considers his answer as he takes a bite of the vegetables. “You’re not wrong. There were a lot of reasons. Tim was really happy in London. I didn’t want him to give that up for a situation I wasn’t excited about. And I really didn’t want to go—I meant that. I like my life here. And at the time, you and the store were so wrapped up together. It was really both.”

David nods thoughtfully. Patrick can feel them carefully circling around something, trying to see if they both understand the shape and scope of it before they name it, classify it. David sets down his fork and looks at Patrick, eyes direct and piercing. “Do you ever wish that you had left?” He follows it with an apologetic smile, like he knows what an impossible question it is. 

“It’s not that exactly,” Patrick says. “I think we could have made it work. Tim and I were good at working for it I think. Maybe that’s not romantic to you, to hear I can imagine being happy with him, even now. But I had a choice to make, and I chose you. David, you’re the most important person in my life . . . Of course I chose you. I’m glad I chose you.” 

David smiles shyly at his hands, and Patrick exhales the breath he’s been holding. “So is this . . . Did you choose the friendship or did you want . . . something more?”

“Well I don’t think one is necessarily _more_ than the other,” Patrick says carefully. “When I made the decision, I knew it might end up either way. But I did ask you on a date, so.”

“Mmm,” David says nodding. “In the middle of a fight. You made me feel very special.”

“Is that why you said no?” Patrick asks. David is smiling but there’s something tender around the edges of it, a nerve that he might pinch if he’s not careful.

“I’m just saying, a romantic gesture would have been nice.” David says it with an ‘it’s nothing’ shrug, so Patrick knows that’s not exactly it. 

“There was a time I would have let you get away with that but I’m an old man now—your words—and you can’t fool me anymore. You might as well tell me what you’re not telling me.”

David takes a deep breath as his fingers jitter against the peeling formica surface of the table. “I didn’t want to be the reason you broke up with him. Even when you were with him and I—I wanted you. I wanted you. But I tried so hard not to be the reason it didn’t work out. To not say anything or do anything that would mess things up for you. And then we had that fight and I found out I messed it up for you anyway. After I tried so hard not to.”

“You didn’t mess it up. No one messed it up,” Patrick says.

“I know that now. But at the time it was just. A lot.”

“Sure,” Patrick says sympathetically. His heart is still pounding against his chest, driven not just by hope now but anticipation.

“So it’s a romantic gesture you wanted?” Patrick asks. 

“Hi, have we met?”

“A thousand times,” Patrick laughs, thinking about all the versions of David that he’s known and loved. “And so far this time is the best.” David smiles again, that sort of private smile he has that he thinks Patrick can’t read, so Patrick takes his phone out of his pocket and flips through the files until he finds the one he wants. “This is the best I can do in the way of romantic gestures on short notice.”

He presses play and there’s a faint static sound before David’s voice starts. “Hi David, it’s Patrick. I, um, was just calling to run my business plan, uh, by you in a little more detail. So feel free to give me a call back, and I will be happy to walk you through it. Okay. Ciao.”

“Ciao,” Patrick echoes softly, smiling at David across the table. 

“Very useful. Means hello _and_ goodbye,” David says, shaking his head at Patrick like he’s ridiculous. Maybe he is. He’s something anyway. He plays the next one.

“Hi. _Patrick_. Yeah, I think I . . . I think I called you David . . .” David does almost the same nervous laugh in real time as he does on the recording. 

“You have a different phone though,” David says once the chime of the incoming text ends the message.

“I turned them into audio files so I could save them. I backed them up too. On my laptop and a flash drive. I don’t want to lose them. The next one’s my favorite.” Patrick knows them all by heart, and even though he’s teasing, it really is his favorite of all of the messages. “It’s where you read me your notes from Wikipedia about the role of apothecaries throughout history and I have to say it’s—"

“I really love you,” David says. Just cuts Patrick off mid-snark. David’s eyes go wide and Patrick thinks maybe he wasn’t going to say that yet, but it’s out now so they’ll have to adjust. David’s smile tugs at the corners of his mouth and then Patrick is smiling back and he feels. God. He just feels it coming at him across the table, unstoppable now that it’s set free. David reaches over and presses pause on the voicemails. “Um. I love you. And you don’t have to say it back. You can say it when you’re ready. But I couldn’t let another year go by without telling you. And I know we have a partnership and a friendship and the last thing I want to do is mess with _any_ of that. I know how invested you are in—”

“Hey,” Patrick stops him, leaving his booth and coming over to sit with David before David talks himself in a circle. “Hi.”

“Hi.” David turns toward him and Patrick watches their hands as his fingertips trace the rounds of David’s knuckles, then across the back of his hand, along the contours of his wrist bone under the cuff of the navy blue sweater Patrick picked out for him at Hudson’s Bay. He looks back at David and grins. “I’m really glad that I decided to invest in your business, David.”

David’s face softens into a thin, yearning smile. “And I’m so glad you did.” He breathes in sharply. “ _Patrick_.” David says his name on a whisper, like a call, a plea as he grips his hand. Patrick’s eyes drop to David’s lips as he leans forward, just enough of an answer that David comes the rest of the way. His hand cups around the back of Patrick’s head, his thumb soft against Patrick’s cheek. Patrick prepares himself for it to be normal and awkward just in case. It’s not. It’s worth the wait.

David kisses like he loves, stubbornly, recklessly. He kisses like he smiles, a little crooked, the joy barging through. He kisses like he listens, every muscle in his body responsive. More than anything else though, he kisses like he means it. When they break apart, Patrick feels like something cracks open inside him that he’s kept safe and hidden for a very long time. David looks soft and also very pleased with himself. 

“I love you, too. Just in case that wasn’t clear,” Patrick says, weaving his fingers through David’s. David smiles as he kisses him again, and then they’re both kind of laughing until the kissing is impossible. 

“If you would stop laughing you would see that I’m good at this,” David says. “And a lot of other things besides.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re not though.” 

“That’s correct.” Patrick looks at his mouth again, now that he can. “But hey. I’m not laughing now.” 

David does an exaggerated eye-roll above his smile, so Patrick is laughing again when he leans in. But only a little bit; he manages to get it under control. As much as he’s enjoying this, he also wants David to know that when he kisses him, he means it too.

There’s cake. Or torte, to be specific. David unearths the Elm Valley Bakery box from behind the counter and rejoins Patrick in the booth. It’s delicious. David catches a bit of the frosting from the corner of Patrick’s mouth with his tongue before he kisses him again. Patrick presses closer, gathering up the flavors of chocolate and laughter and raspberries and love. 

“We can take this with us, right?” Patrick asks, too distracted with David’s mouth to finish. Patrick thought he knew how it felt to ache for David. But after a few minutes of grabbing hands and greedy tongues, he realizes he had no idea. David in the abstract is nothing like David present and real, kissing him, touching him.

“We can. Dance with me first?” Patrick nods and follows him out of the booth. David turns up the volume on the music using his phone and pulls Patrick close, much closer than they were at his parents’ anniversary. The opening of “Brighter than Sunshine” floats over them as they start to sway.

“So I know you do this every year, but this particular party might go down as one of the happiest nights of my life,” Patrick says. 

“Well I guess that makes up for the fact that neither of us ate the crab cakes,” David jokes. Patrick hopes they can pack up the leftover food for later.

“So how long have you known?” Patrick asks. 

David looks like he wants to play dumb but he chooses not to. 

“I don’t know. I thought maybe the road trip, but that was . . . I wasn’t in a great place? I just know you dropped me off and I didn’t want that to be the end of it. And then I thought maybe the housewarming party. I wanted you to kiss me and was also terrified you would kiss me. I think maybe I wasn’t ready to know for sure, yet, and I thought if you kissed me I would know for sure. I did know for sure when you and Stevie were singing karaoke at my fortieth birthday though.” 

“Forty-second,” Patrick reminds him. 

“Same thing,” David says. “Anyway, you and Stevie were singing and sort of tromping around on the little stage. And I remember thinking how much I loved both of you. But I couldn’t stop watching you all sweaty and very close to drunk and singing off-key on purpose because you know it annoys me and thinking I was really, deeply, totally in trouble.”

“The Power of Love,” Patrick says quietly. They chose the song because they’d googled hits from 1985 and it’s the one they both thought they could manage.

“Fucking Huey Lewis.”

“Hmm.” Patrick smiles and pulls David closer, thinking about all those almost-moments as Aqualung fills in around them. 

_”I never saw it happenin’,_  
_I’d given up and given in,_  
_I just couldn’t take the hurt again,_  
_What a feeling._

_”I didn’t have the strength to fight,_  
_But suddenly it seemed so right,_  
_Me and you,_  
_What a feeling.”_

“That was two years ago,” Patrick realizes, thinking back. It feels more like two weeks. 

“I wanted to tell you after the anniversary party. But you left. And I thought maybe you didn’t want to hear it.”

“That’s what ‘drinks’ was?”

“Obviously.”

“It wasn’t obvious to me. I think by then I had just learned to assume nothing meant what I wanted it to mean.”

“Hmm,” David says, like he understands that to his core. He looks around at the café. “This was obvious, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m sorry it took so long,” David says.

“Don’t be. We had ten great years together. I’ve really loved being your friend, David Rose.”

David’s smile kind of crumples as he pulls him in close to hide the fact that he’s tearing up. Patrick kisses his neck as he wraps his arms around him. They’ve hugged a lot over the years but this feels different. More honest, maybe, about what they’re holding between them. 

“You know when I knew?” Patrick asks as he holds him, unwilling to let go.

“When?”

“When Oscar brought you a caramel macchiato and forgot the cocoa powder. I was so angry at the injustice of it all. That I lost you to this person who couldn’t even get fundamental details right. And then I thought it probably wasn’t normal to be that upset over cocoa powder.”

“It _was_ very upsetting,” David says graciously, pulling back enough to smile at him with charmed indignance.

“Anyway I did move on, obviously. It’s not like—”

“I know,” David says. “We can take this slow if you want to. Figure it out as we go.”

“David. The cocoa powder I gave you to rectify the situation is probably expired by now. I think we can get on with it.”

“Get on with it?” David tsks and shakes his head. “What did I say about romance?”

“Oh trust me. Getting on with it can be very romantic,” Patrick says, and then he kisses him because he can. “We’ll light candles.” He’s about to pull David toward the door when he stops himself. “We don’t have to, though. We can watch a movie. Or I can just drop you off and—”

“We’ll light candles,” David agrees. And that lights a fire under both of them.

There are logistics to take care of first. They have to turn out lights and lock up and message Twyla and all of that takes twice as long to do with hands and mouths that are occupied. They have to decide where they’re going. Patrick’s apartment is nicer but David’s is closer and the closer option wins unanimously. Patrick parks in front of David’s building and searches through his glove box and the console before getting out. 

“Do you have lube or condoms or anything?” he asks, irritated as he comes up empty. “I used to have some in here.”

“I have several types of each,” David says, and Patrick closes the center console with a snap. David grins and Patrick grins back. They both rush to unbuckle and get out of the car. 

“I just need to put this away first,” David says when they get inside, holding up their leftovers and the bakery box.

Patrick has spent enough time here that he knows where everything is. He takes the matches out of the drawer and gestures toward the candles on the console table in the living room. “Can I?”

David looks at him with the kind of emotionally overloaded fondness he’s been projecting all night and nods. “Want something to drink? Stevie left her whiskey last time she came over.”

“Oh definitely,” Patrick says. “I suppose we’ll have to tell her pretty soon, huh?”

“I’m sure she already knows since neither of us have showed up at her place to debrief.”

“True,” Patrick laughs. David brings the glasses over and sits down next to him on the couch. He feels a little unsettled suddenly, here in David’s space. David’s apartment is always tidy, each item tucked into its assigned place. Patrick doesn’t know where his place is here yet. 

“Anyway, we are getting sidetracked here. So.” David smiles, one end of his mouth higher than the other, and leans in, and this kiss feels very much on track. David eases back but lets his hand dance along the curve of Patrick’s shoulder as they talk. “What do you like?” he asks. “I want to do something you like.”

“I like a lot of things.” Patrick takes a sip to buy himself some time to think about it. He’s half-hard already; it’s not that he doesn’t want to do this. But he’s nervous, maybe. He feels a lot of pressure suddenly to translate all these years, everything they said to each other in the café, into a big moment. But if he’s learned anything from his thirties, it’s that looking for the big moment can mean you miss out entirely.

“Want to play a game with me?” he asks, struck with an idea.

“Um. Sure?” David says. “What did you have in mind? And I only have like six games here.”

“Not that kind of game,” Patrick says. “I was thinking Would You Rather.”

“Is this what I get for falling in love with a business major? Icebreaker games?” he jokes.

“Takes one to know one," Patrick fires back. “But uh. Not that kind of Would You Rather.” Patrick eyes him cagily, and David bites his lip on the edge of his smile. “I’ll start. Would you rather have sex in the front seat or the back seat of a car?”

“Just jumping right in there,” David says, but he doesn’t look like he minds it. He turns toward Patrick and plays along. “Bucket seats or bench seats? Actually, no, I think back seat either way, but with the front seats pushed all the way up. You?”

“Nope. Now you have to ask a question.”

“Ugh. Okay.” He thinks for a minute. “Would you rather have sex in a public but temporarily empty place or in your parents’ house with family in the next room.”

“Public for sure. I can work quickly if I absolutely have to.” David does a terrible job of controlling his face. “Would you rather have a back rub or foot massage?”

“Foot massage,” David says. 

Patrick sets his glass next to the candles on the table behind the sofa. “Hand them over.” He tugs at David’s calves until David grins and adjusts so his feet are in Patrick’s lap. Patrick starts rubbing David’s feet. It’s meant to be arousing, not relaxing, and even though Patrick isn’t as familiar with David’s faces in this context, he thinks it’s working.

“Would you rather role play or have shower sex?” David asks, and this look is unmistakable, full of heat and need.

Patrick’s hands pause as he groans. “That’s an impossible choice. Those aren’t even similar.”

“It’s your game,” he says with a shrug.

“What’s the scene?” Patrick asks. 

“Your choice.”

“Role play in the shower then. You’ll be the sexy plumber and I’ll be the horny homeowner.”

There’s a long beat before David responds, his voice a husk. “I think that’s cheating.”

“It’s my game,” Patrick says archly, and then presses his thumb into a spot on David’s sole that causes him to lose track of his next thought. “Great sex once a week or mediocre sex whenever you want?”

David moves one of his feet so his heel presses higher up on Patrick’s thigh. “I don’t have mediocre sex anymore,” David says. His eyes are dark now and Patrick feels the promise of it in his dick. “Threesome or sex tape?”

“There we go,” Patrick grins. He tried a sex tape once with Tim; they thought it would be fun for when Tim was traveling. Patrick could never get past how weird and performative it felt. Maybe it would be different with David. But. “Threesome.” David arches an eyebrow at that and Patrick feels a little heat rise into his cheeks. Patrick removes David’s socks one at a time. “Top or bottom?” he asks, brushing his fingers feather-light along the bones of his foot. The noise David makes is enough to make Patrick all the way hard.

“Top,” he says carefully. “I like both, but um.” He looks like he’s torn between asking Patrick’s opinion and the clearly stated rules. “If I have to choose.”

“For the game you have to choose. I like both, for the record, but especially bottoming.” Patrick can see David’s smile out of the corner of his eye as his hands travel up David’s calves.

“Restraints or toys?” David asks and Patrick laughs, a hungry, strangled thing.

“Restraints,” he says without hesitation. 

“This is very good information,” David says, draining his whiskey and setting the glass aside.

“Intercrural or blowjob,” Patrick asks, thinking ahead. 

“Is it your thighs?” David asks, scooting closer so he's almost in Patrick's lap, his eyes a deep, desperate black. 

Patrick nods. “Or my mouth.”

David kisses the mouth in question. “Both then. Fuck.”

“That’s not the game.”

“I don’t care,” David says, kissing him again. “Would you rather do this on the couch or bed?”

“Bed,” Patrick says. David nods and gets up. Patrick blows out the candles on the table behind them and scrambles down the hall after him. “Door open or closed?” Patrick asks when they get to the bedroom.

“Oh, closed,” he says, and soon Patrick finds himself pressed between David and the closed door. David noses at the fabric of Patrick’s henley where the top two buttons are unbuttoned. Patrick tips his head back so David can nibble up the line of his neck. His skin is starting to feel raw from the earlier scrape of David’s stubble and every time his mouth passes back over the tender skin it’s a reminder that this is finally, finally happening.

The kisses are uncoordinated now, hands seeking purchase and mouths seeking skin. Patrick keeps expecting it to feel weird or awkward to be touching David and kissing David like he can’t get enough of him, but even the low-level nerves have cleared out now. The more time David spends pressed against him, the more time his hands spend exploring, the more Patrick wants. David wants it too; he can feel his cock pressed against his hip.

Patrick pushes his knee forward experimentally and David responds immediately, the blunt ends of his short fingernails digging into Patrick’s back as he tries to get them closer. Both of them leave the slow exploration behind. 

“Your clothes first or mine?” 

“Mine,” Patrick says. They’re still half playing the game but also grabbing at hems. Once Patrick’s shirt is . . . somewhere—he wasn’t paying attention—Patrick reaches for David’s sweater.

“I like this sweater. You wore it when we went to Syd’s for the tattoo and I just. Fuck, David. Your shoulders look so good in it,” he says as he pulls it off. David is more rangy than he expected, with strong shoulders and lean arms and groomed chest hair that Patrick can’t help but touch. So he does. 

“I was so annoyed that you brought, ah—” David loses himself temporarily as Patrick’s fingers brush lightly over his nipples. “That you brought the perfect thing to the fitting room when you don’t even like clothes.”

“I like clothes. Although right now they’re kind of in the way.” It’s a little cheesy but Patrick is a little cheesy, and David already knows that so he can just . . . lean in. He doesn’t have to hide anything. David fights his laughter as Patrick’s fingers move closer to the ticklish skin on the side of his ribs under his arms. “I still can’t believe you bought a navy sweater.”

“It’s midnight blue. It’s practically black.”

“It looks pretty blue to me,” Patrick says, hoping to win the argument by distracting David with his teeth against his chest.

David catches his face in his hands and smiles at him, maybe eighty-seven percent exasperated and thirteen percent fond. And standing there, looking at him, everything becomes real. He’s a mess, from his dark and desperate eyes to his bitten-red lips to the pink bloom of a hickey on the top of his shoulder to his hair mangled by Patrick’s hands. It's the same David who he's known for so long, who he loves so much, except now he has signs of Patrick all over him. “Would you rather have a lesson about tints and shades of color or have sex?” David asks. 

Patrick doesn’t have to answer that; he kisses him and the answer is obvious. David sits on the bed, teeth and tongue working their way down Patrick’s chest. David unbuttons his jeans and slides them off, easing them over his cock as he works them down over his ass. Patrick steps out of them and nudges David back on the bed. But David lets himself look and Patrick lets himself enjoy it. And that’s very new.

David reclines and Patrick surveys the complicated series of closures of David’s pants. There’s a tie for the fabric overlay and a zipper running sideways through another layer of fabric and over one hip. Other closures must be hidden.

“You clearly knew we might be doing this tonight. You couldn’t have taken it easy on me?” Patrick asks, pawing at the layers of fabric.

“You’re saying you haven’t once in all these years thought about how to undress me?”

“Yes obviously. And it’s even more complicated than I imagined.” David hauls him down for a kiss, his laughter bubbling up between them. Patrick scowls at him, which isn’t quite the mood he’s trying to set, but he wants his hands on something that isn’t fabric, dammit.

He fumbles with the tie until he loosens it but he gets nowhere quickly on the rest. He gives up temporarily and kisses David, who is still laughing at him. “Would you rather help me, or should I make you come in your pants?”

David smiles and unclasps a piece of fabric from one direction and then the other, then undoes the zipper, and Patrick was wrong. These pants aren’t an obstruction, they’re a tease. Watching David unfasten and unclip without dropping his eyes from Patrick’s is one of the hottest things he’s seen in his life. “These are Yoshio Kubo and they cost more than one month’s rent. We can get come literally anywhere else.” Patrick helps him take them the rest of the way off and then has to pause, taking him in. 

“You’re very pretty.” Patrick says it sincerely and gets what he’s hoping for, the shy, shifty-eyed smile. When he moves forward again, it’s less frantic and more focused.

They lie back on the bed, Patrick bracing himself with his arms. David’s hand grasps his forearm and moves across the tattoo, his fingers following the lines. “I never thought you’d go through with this,” David says.

“Why?” Patrick asks, pressing kisses against David’s shoulders as his fingers send shivers up Patrick’s arms. 

“Because I wasn’t paying attention. The day you asked me to go with you, I started paying attention.”

“And what did you see?”

David’s face goes quiet. “Someone worth waiting for.”

“Hey,” Patrick says. 

“Hey,” David echoes. This time when he kisses him it’s sweet and longing and pure. And Patrick likes it as much as all the rest. “Would you rather keep playing this game or. . . How did you put it earlier? Get on with it?”

Patrick snorts into his collar bone. “We can get on with it. Tell me something you want.”

“It’s your birthday for—” David turns to check the clock on the nightstand. “—sixty-five more minutes. We’re doing something you want first.”

“Okay,” Patrick says. He wants everything, but David wants direction. And somewhere in the last hour or so this became as easy as breathing, being with David like this. So he tells him. “I would like very much to suck your cock until it’s hard and for you to not come so you can fuck me.”

David grins. “One problem: it’s already hard,” David says, pushing up against Patrick in demonstration.

“I know. I guess you’ll have to hold on for me then,” Patrick murmurs as he kisses and nibbles along David’s chest and stomach. His underwear is already spotted from precome, so Patrick mouths at it until the fabric is wet, getting an idea of the size of him. David reaches for the drawer of the nightstand and digs around until a bottle of lube and two condoms land on the bed next to Patrick. He grins and stands up to take off his own underwear and then David’s.

“Do you want to hold on for me?" Patrick asks.

David breathes out a reedy, "Yes. Fuck, yes." Patrick smiles before he takes him into his mouth and then he begins in earnest.

There is very little in life that Patrick enjoys more than doing something he knows he’s good at. And he knows he’s good at this. “Oh fuck,” David says as Patrick plays with the head of his cock in his mouth, his tongue teasing and circling. And now, David knows he’s good at it too. 

Patrick laughs with his mouth full of cock which makes David groan and writhe and grab at his shoulders. “It is not fair to help me imagine all the filthy things I want to do to you for thirty minutes and then expect me to— _Fuck,_ Patrick. Your fucking mouth is . . .” David digs his fingers into Patrick's hair and groans, unable to finish the sentence.

David's hips are shaking now, so Patrick pops off to locate the lube and then props himself up on an elbow and trails his fingers through the line of hair below David’s navel, across his hip and down his thigh, giving him a reprieve. He follows his fingers with his lips, leaving faint pink marks in David’s skin. He’s so soft. He marks so easily. Patrick thought maybe he would be but it’s not nearly the same as knowing it through the touch of his hands. “Would you rather fuck me face-to-face or from behind?” Patrick asks as his fingers trail down the other leg. He bends to taste David’s skin where it trembles in their wake. Patrick wonders if he’ll ever get used to having David like this, or if he’ll always feel like he feels now, overcome by wanting.

“Both,” David breathes as Patrick closes his mouth around him again, bathing him in more of his heat. “But tonight I want to see you.” His voice is raw and Patrick strokes his hand slowly up and down his hip as he uses his tongue along his shaft. David combs his fingers through Patrick’s hair. “I’m so close.”

It’s a warning, a promise. Patrick releases him and lets his mouth lead him back up, teasing and playing along the way until he’s back at his lips again. 

They borrow as much time as they can from their desperate bodies, reveling in the sensations of teeth and tongue and noses and hands. Even though David is taller, they are about the same length from shoulder to hip, and Patrick thinks even if they both come before they want to, here like this, cocks pressed between them as their lips tease and taste, that it will be some of the best sex he’s ever had. David manages to spread some lube on his fingers without interrupting them, and when his finger teases the edge of Patrick’s hole, Patrick’s lips still against his skin.

“Ready?” he asks, and Patrick nods. He presses in.

David’s fingers move in his body like they move through the air, with an agile ownership that claims each new inch of space. “More,” Patrick groans, and then whines when David takes his hand out for more lube. 

“You know. You didn’t used to know you were gorgeous, which was infuriating,” David whispers, his teeth ghosting along the shell of Patrick’s ear. “And now you do, which is frankly kind of infuriating too. And you’re still five times more gorgeous than you think you are. So when you figure that out, I’m going to be so fucked.”

David takes his earlobe in his teeth and pulls as he adds the third finger, and the combination of the press against his prostate and the pinch at his ear and the precome dripping from David’s eager cock has him nearly coming. Patrick knows David’s body. He knows every single movement it makes, and whether those movements mean he’s happy or excited or terrified or devastated. He understands his movements intuitively now, from the tight clench of a fist to a full-body shimmy. But it’s a completely different experience to feel that body under his hands, invading him, grasping and pushing and fighting to know his body in return.

David pulls out and Patrick whines, which makes David laugh. “Would you rather I make you come that way or fuck you like you asked,” he snarks.

“Both?” Patrick says with a little shrug. But he takes the lube and the condom, smiling at the noise David makes while he watches Patrick put it on him. David presses in slowly and then all at once, filling him. 

“I don’t know how long I have,” David says.

“It doesn’t matter. This is already—Fuck,” Patrick says as he begins to move. 

David has plenty of time it turns out. He finds an angle right away that turns Patrick nonverbal and works it mercilessly. Patrick is close to coming himself, his own cock flailing between them, looking for friction. Patrick pulls his knees up higher and David takes advantage of the extra space to drive deeper. He pushes in again and holds there, and Patrick thinks he’s never been this full or this fucking happy. 

David exhales and looks at Patrick. Just looks at him, all soft mouth and piercing eyes and trembling length. Then he laughs. Patrick laughs too. It’s either that or cry. Patrick has no idea if it would have worked out when they were younger, but this. He’s never letting this go. He reaches up with both hands to push back the fall of David’s hair as they both try to settle the laughter, and then he kisses him with what he hopes conveys at least a little of what he’s feeling now. Is there a thing that’s even more than love? He’s loved David for so many years, so this is . . . he doesn’t know what to call whatever this is.

“You doing good?” David asks. 

“Really good,” Patrick nods, holding his face in his hands. David turns his head to kiss the inside of Patrick’s palm, and then his wrist, and then he drops his forehead toward Patrick’s chest and starts moving again, his hair feathering against the dip in his sternum. Patrick grabs at his hips and tries to hang on to the rhythm until he can't anymore, until the coil of need has tightened along every inch of him, begging to be released. Patrick closes his eyes so he can hold on just a little longer, reveling in the feeling of David pressing in until they're closer than they have ever been before. 

David comes with a groan, his breath hot and wet against Patrick's chest. He drops his hips and closes his hand around Patrick's hand, which has already fought its way to his dick. David's hand twists, his thumb pressing against the head, whispering, "You can come, you can come," and that’s all it takes for Patrick to come too. The orgasm tears through him. The weight of David's body is the only thing that keeps him even remotely close to earth, and Patrick is shuddering and gasping and laughing again or still, he’s not sure. 

David holds the condom and pulls out, still breathing heavily as he ties it off and pushes off the bed. "I'll be right back," he says, his stubble tickling Patrick's collarbone where he kisses it. Patrick watches him disappear into the hall and then looks up at the ceiling. He can’t stop smiling. His cheeks feel tired and sore from it. David returns with a warm washcloth and a dry towel and an extra blanket. He’s quiet as he presses the washcloth and then the towel to Patrick’s ass but he looks up occasionally, the smile ever-present in his eyes and the corners of his mouth. 

“Would you rather be the big spoon or little spoon?” David asks softly, tossing the supplies into the corner off the rug. 

“Little,” Patrick says, and David’s smile breaks open. “But I should plug in my phone and set an alarm first.”

“Oh. Um. I may have asked the staff to cover us for a couple of days. There’s a thing at the Warner farm but last I checked she was fine with moving it to the end of the week.” Patrick feels his mouth hanging open and can’t seem to close it. “I wanted time with you,” he adds with an unapologetic shrug. “I was a little worried about tempting fate but . . . I was pretty sure.”

“So we’re making up for lost time?” Patrick asks as David rearranges the pillows. 

“Not lost,” David says. “I liked all the time we had. More like . . . I wanted time to start this out the right way.”

“By fucking a lot,” Patrick says, half-serious despite his sarcastic smile.

“That too.” David tucks himself around Patrick and pulls up the extra blanket and then the covers. “I always get cold after sex,” he mumbles like a confession, and Patrick thinks that of all the new things he’s learned about David tonight, this one is is favorite so far. 

Patrick knows he’s supposed to be little-spooning but he turns so he can see him. David’s eyes are bright in the dark room as he whispers, “Happy birthday, Patrick.” 

“Thank you. For making this happen for us.” Patrick kisses him, slow and easy, and curls into the space under his chin. And they fall asleep like that in the warmth of the extra blanket and each other.

* * *

On the morning that they have to go back to work, Patrick wakes up first. He’s still mostly huddled against David, but some time in the night he kicked off half of the blankets and now he’s cold. He tries to squirm back under them without waking David and fails miserably, getting the sheet irrevocably tangled around his ankle.

“Are you trying out for Riverdance in my bed right now?” David grumbles. 

“Yep, you caught me,” Patrick says, propping himself up on an elbow to unwind the sheet and straighten it back over the top of them, hoping to doze until his alarm goes off. They’ve barely moved since Patrick’s birthday, or by another metric, they’ve been moving ever since. They drove to Patrick’s apartment the day before to check the mail and pick up clothes for today and walked up and down Main Street in Elm Valley, just to get out. Otherwise they’ve alternated between the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, and the shower, watching movies and arguing about music and cooking and fucking. Patrick is sore and happy and not quite ready to get back to real life.

David has no intention of going back to sleep. He lays kisses across the back of Patrick’s shoulders. It’s quickly becoming David’s favorite spot, Patrick thinks. He’s always touching and caressing and kissing him there. Patrick groans, still exhausted from the previous night. He’s torn between the alluring press of David hard against his back and the very real soreness in every limb.

“One more time before we have to go back to the real world?” David asks, fingers stroking along the jut of his hip. 

“The spirit is willing but the body is forty,” Patrick says, and David laughs into his back.

“I can just take care of you,” David says, palming Patrick’s mutinously hardening cock. “Or I can hop in the shower and give you a little extra time to sleep.”

That does it apparently, David offering to get up an hour early just so Patrick can sleep. Patrick reaches for the lube and lifts his leg, spreading it over both of them before settling David between his thighs. David takes him in his hand as he thrusts, his palm perfectly sized to turn Patrick's half-hard morning haze into a rolling, sweeping need. Patrick reaches back for David's hips to urge him on and finds the marks he left there the day before. David gasps, but before Patrick can apologize, David growls, "Again," into his shoulders. Neither of them try to make it last after that. The warmth of David tucked tightly against him shuddering through the aftershocks replaces the morning chill. 

They shower and get ready and drive to the store. Stevie appears with coffee an hour into the day. 

“I know you both drink tea now but I thought you might be a little . . . underslept,” she says, grinning. 

David looks at Patrick with a knowing smile and they both take their coffee with a quiet thanks.

“After all the pushing and pulling I had to do to get you to this point I’m not even going to get details?” she asks. 

David looks at Patrick fondly and then comes behind the cash to drape his arms over his shoulders. “Stevie wants details,” he says, kissing Patrick’s jaw from behind. “Would you rather tell her to fuck off now or invite her to eat dinner with us so we can tell her to fuck off later?”

“Oh, I think we can at least buy her dinner,” Patrick says, cupping his hands around David’s arms.

“I hate this already,” she says, but she’s smiling and maybe—yes—blinking away moisture in her eyes so she agrees to meet them at the café at six. Later that afternoon, while David is helping a customer make a wine selection for a party they’re hosting, Patrick slips his phone out of his pocket and sends Stevie a quick message. 

_Thanks for the pushing and pulling._

* * *

After that, things move quickly. There is no past baggage to unpack or big proclamations of love outstanding or parents to meet. Marcy, when they tell her, whoops into the phone and says, “I was starting to think I wouldn’t live to see the day.” Mrs. Rose’s response is similar, if delivered in a more passive tone and with more complicated syntax.

Patrick assumes most things will stay the same. And some do. They bicker for the fun of it and sometimes for real. They manage the store and the staff as usual and spend time with their friends. They go on the annual vendor road trip together and take Stevie out for her birthday and even help screen potential randoms. David draws in the sketchbook he’s kept since his art show and Patrick leads a kayaking trip for Pride Outside. 

But also, everything changes. 

Patrick goes to bed with David and wakes up with David and it’s not enough, just the times when they’re alone, to soak him in. Sometimes he has to stop him when he’s wiping down shelves or balancing the drawer at the end of the day just to put his hands on his hips and his heart in his hands. 

When they finally sit down and work through the business plan for the next ten years, a conversation that involves where they see themselves as much as the store, they only use words like we and ours. And it doesn’t occur to either of them to be anxious about that.

They go on dates. At least once a week if they can. They go shopping at Hudson’s Bay and eat pretzels because they taste even better when there’s something to celebrate. They go to the drive-in, which has reopened to capitalize on a recent bout of nostalgia, and Patrick blows David in the back seat while they watch the latest Sandra Bullock vehicle. They curl up in front of Patrick’s fireplace and watch movies and read books. They cook dinner and go out for dinner and take dinner to parks and gardens to picnic. They have spa days and karaoke nights. They visit the Dude Cave and end up making out with each other in the back corner. They visit the botanical gardens and walk among the cherry trees, even though it’s too late in the year to see them in bloom, and end up making out with each other in the back corner. David draws more often, and often he draws Patrick. One a vendor trip, they end up at the motel with the vibrating bed and David puts two quarters in the machine. They laugh too much to fuck properly, but that’s one of the best parts about sex with David. Nothing has to go right for it to feel right. Whenever they’re together, it feels both achingly familiar and blissfully new. Maybe that’s what happens when you fall in love with your best friend, Patrick thinks. You get the chance to relearn them from new angles, to see them more dimensionally if not really differently.

* * *

David is the one who gets the phone call on a sunny afternoon in November. He gestures wildly at Patrick to come into the back with him and puts it on speakerphone. There’s a clinical female voice discussing an offer to buy the business, including the Rose Apothecary brand. She quotes them a number that’s insanely high, and when they ask for time to think about it, she calls back in an hour and raises it. She promises to send everything in writing and follow up in two weeks.

The discussion is tense. David paces back and forth, pushing boxes out of the way with his toe to clear the path. “What would we do then?” David asks. “This is our store.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says. 

“I mean you stayed here for this place.”

“I stayed here for you,” Patrick says. That’s clear now. 

“We can’t just . . . go. Right?” 

Patrick just shrugs. He knows he’s supposed to argue, but he can’t. He watched David’s interest pique when they called back to increase the offer. David could return to New York and open a gallery. He could take a sabbatical and make his own art. The special events are clearly David’s favorite part of running the store. He could focus on just that. They could open a new business somewhere doing any of those things. They could do absolutely anything they want. Patrick encourages David to think about it. Patrick doesn’t need time to think. He already knows what he wants.

* * *

November is a little late for a hike up to Rattlesnake Point but there’s no snow yet, so Patrick decides to go for it. At least this time of year will be free of bugs and poison ivy. He’s expecting resistance when he asks David to join him, but his only request is that they bring cheese. 

The path up to the lookout is mostly wooded but a lot of the leaves have fallen now, so they’re able to see quite a ways into the valley as they climb. David stops here and there to take a picture with his phone. He takes a few pictures of Patrick too. 

“Again?” Patrick asks after the fourth request to pose. “David at this rate we’ll barely make it back before dark.”

“It’s not my fault you look dashing in your hiking clothes,” he says. 

They talk a little bit about the offer. It’s too big and too complicated for them to talk about all the time. But Patrick always takes to the woods when he has a choice to make. It’s why Patrick first came here all those years ago, wondering what to do about David, and about himself. The woods work for David too. They stop for water and he says, “I’m having a hard time coming up with a reason why we shouldn’t take it.”

Patrick just nods and drinks his water and keeps climbing.

“Is this one of the routes you and Tim used to hike?” David asks.

“No,” Patrick says. “I only ever came up here alone.”

David turns to look at him and for a minute Patrick thinks maybe he gave away too much. David just turns back with a small smile and keeps walking uphill.

They finally reach the top and David looks out over the fields below. “Well this is nice,” he says.

“I wouldn’t have made you hike all this way if I didn’t think it was gonna be worth it. I know you a little better than that,” Patrick says, sitting on a rock to unload a few items while David is distracted by the view.

“Okay, so how should we set up the picnic?” David asks, gesturing toward the general area of their backpacks. 

“Uh. Will you sit with me for a minute first?”

David nods and sits down next to Patrick, leaning into his shoulder with a gentle nudge. Patrick smiles at the gesture. It wasn’t that long ago when those quick nudges and shoulder squeezes were about the extent of their physical contact. 

“You told me once the only way you would go hiking was if there was a true act of subterfuge and someone worth following up a mountain,” Patrick starts. “Is that still true?”

“Oh definitely. Although I came willingly, so you must really be worth it,” he teases. 

“I’m glad you think so,” Patrick says with a laugh. “Because I’ll follow you anywhere.”

Patrick hands David the long black velvet box and lets him open it. David does a laugh-sob that makes Patrick’s heart clench. Then David reaches for Patrick’s hand, looking at him like he’s not sure this is really happening. Patrick squeezes back and nods. It’s happening.

Patrick always feels like it’s easier to ask hard questions when he’s up here. Questions about what he wants and where he’s going and who he is. David looks so sure, so steady, despite the tears falling from his eyes. So when Patrick finally decides to ask the question he wants to ask, it’s the easiest decision he’s ever made. “David, will you marry me?”

David just nods and closes the box and pulls Patrick to him. He stops a few inches from Patrick’s face and catches a tear from Patrick’s cheek with his thumb. “Yes. I love you. Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pants and Likerealpeopldo beta'd this in parts and then again in whole and are fantastic friends and all-around human beings. olive2read remains the best brainstorming buddy. And another_Hero provided one of my favorite lines in this entire story.
> 
> I've been feeling a little silly continuing to focus so much time and energy on this when there are so many really serious things going on, but it was meaningful to find out that this thing that's helping me get through the recent insanity is helping some of you, too. So thanks for that. Truly.


	13. 2028

Patrick sets the lid to the plastic tote aside and begins loading the items they kept behind the counter, stacking extra receipt paper and branded pens and post-it notes along with the merchandising and sales binders he and David created together. 

He finds a few unexpected items tucked away under the counter, too. David’s old reading glasses are hiding in their leather case in the shadows behind the extra packing tape. They are only his old readers because he misplaced them and had to buy new readers. 

Patrick also finds a handwritten notice he gave to David in their first year in business with Mrs. Rose’s Sunrise Bay headshot under _Wanted for Shoplifting_ and a warning to call the authorities if she was spotted in the store. David apparently saved it in a folder with a handful of other notes, including a terrible limerick about ordering more body milk that Patrick wrote one day when he was bored. David also kept the R.A.W. sushi-roll logo he drew and a passive aggressive graph Patrick created to demonstrate how quickly they would be forced to go out of business if they kept letting Stevie take wine in exchange for the tiniest of favors. 

Patrick puts the folder in his bag along with the readers to ask David about later. At home, in a relationship that’s well-defined, they are both organized and neat. But at the store, where their relationship was nebulous and ever-changing for more than a decade, he keeps finding bits and pieces of their history ferreted away. He’s enjoying uncovering the residue of their years together that they’ve lost or forgotten, deposited in this shared space and buried by time.

The store is starting to look pretty empty now that most of the merchandise is moved out. A lot of the furniture is gone too. The last of the items they need to pack are all huddled together on a folding table near the front, still ruthlessly categorized and arranged label-out.

Patrick is nearly finished behind the counter when the bell announces David’s arrival with tea for the afternoon.

“Oh, hi,” David says, leaning back against the door and smiling seductively the way he always does when he wants Patrick to know how hot David thinks he is. Which usually makes Patrick feel very hot, and also slightly annoyed at being so easily played. 

“Hi,” Patrick says, setting the tote on the end of the counter where the point-of-sale system used to be. David shimmies his way into the store and sets the drinks next to the tote and leans forward. His smile draws Patrick to it; David tastes like tea and a mysteriously absent muffin when he kisses him.

“Have I ever told you how sexy it is to walk in here and see you um . . . packing?”

“You have. You told me four times yesterday.”

“Mmhmm.” He nods and smiles and Patrick still can’t quite believe all of this is happening. He gets to marry this man in a week. “That’s because we spent all day yesterday packing.”

“We? _I_ spent all day yesterday packing.” David just grimaces apologetically and pushes onward, which tells Patrick whatever this is about is something he thinks Patrick will like. It's good, probably, that he doesn't know how much Patrick likes it all, the plotting and pretending and plying each other with smiles and snark.

“Hot,” David says with an extra-sharp T. “Do you know what else is hot and sexy? Doing something spontaneous this afternoon.”

“Ooh, like what? You helping me with the packing?”

“Yes.” David says, and it’s difficult not to kiss the agenda off his face. “Or . . . taking the afternoon off.” 

“David, we have to be out of here by tomorrow. We probably both need to work on this today or we won’t get it done.”

“I know,” David says, coming around the counter. He pulls Patrick close with an arm around his shoulder and smiles, which is unfairly powerful at close range. Then he says, voice low, “It’s just that I called the botanical gardens and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. And with everything happening with the store and the wedding . . . It seems like the only chance to see them this year.”

David kisses him before Patrick can respond, lips greedy as he draws Patrick closer. David’s hand presses into his chest in a move that he normally doesn’t try in public because it shifts Patrick into another gear. It works this time too, taking what is a persistent hunger and turning it into a ravaging need for David. 

Patrick pulls on him until they're moving, until he feels the counter pressing into his kidneys. It doesn’t matter. He keeps tugging at David, one hand on his ass while he slots their legs together, the other cradling David’s head in search of a better angle for his tongue. 

Patrick did not plan to be forty and unable to keep his hands off his coworker in his place of work, but he’s come to the conclusion that there is very little point in getting attached to plans when it comes to David. In this instance, and only this instance, it’s more fun just to see what happens. Still, the combination of a store that is temporarily closed and a wedding that is fast-approaching has made it difficult to be very productive with David around. Which is the main reason why Patrick has done most of the packing himself while David handles the last-minute wedding details. 

Even with the store closed, people from out of town still come by to peer in the windows before they bother to read the sign on the door directing them to the temporary location. They'll operate out of the old bank building for the rest of the year while construction on the expansion takes over this space. With that in mind, Patrick gathers the remaining fragments of his professional decorum and slows them down, frantic kisses turning soft against David’s lips. “I guess we could duck out early today,” Patrick says. “It will mean we’ll have to start early tomorrow.”

David looks like he wants to say something snarky, but instead he nods, a tight affirmation of Patrick’s unshakeable sense of responsibility. “That is a compromise that I am willing to make,” he says, the words brushing against Patrick’s lips. Of all the ways they’ve grown toward each other since his birthday, Patrick loves this most of all. He loves that they never lost the game between them, and that they no longer have to play it unless they want to.

* * *

The cherry blossoms are really beautiful in person. It’s the first time they’ve seen them in bloom together. The trees line a wide pond of glassy water moving just enough in the gentle breeze to turn the reflections fuzzy. Like an impressionist painting, David says, wrapping Patrick in his arms from behind, his chin hooked over Patrick’s shoulder. The flowers are almost white where the sun shines through the pale pink edges, fading to a deep pink near the dark branches. The whole thing is surprisingly moving.

Patrick can still feel the prickle of the permanent marker across his arm and the bite of the tattoo needle vibrating against his skin. He can feel the way the melancholy that settled over him when he broke up with Tim finally began to lift that day, as David talked about renewal and new beginnings and softness from strength. Until today, Patrick felt bad that they never made it here. But now this feels right, seeing this for the first time as fiancés, suspended in this fleeting stage between past and future, friends and husbands, for just a little bit longer. 

Patrick tries his best to stay in the moment, but it’s hard not to think about how much has changed. They’ve been immersed in change lately between expanding the store to include a more versatile space for classes and a wider selection of products, and making arrangements for the wedding and the marriage that will follow it. 

It’s been six months since they turned down the offer to buy the store. The weekend after the hike, they celebrated and fucked and announced their engagement and then celebrated by fucking some more. On Monday, their day off, they went over the paperwork for the sale and David asked if they should do some research, find out more about the buyer, look to see if there might be better offers if they indicated an interest in selling.

“I just feel weird about taking an offer because it falls in our laps,” David said, running his hand through his hair as he flipped through the pages of analysis sent over by the lawyer they hired to help with the sale. “And there are no provisions in here about what would happen to the store itself. Or the vendors once their contracts are up. Or about what they would do with the employees.” David’s hands moved wildly as he paced back and forth. Then he stopped and looked at Patrick with harrowed eyes that made Patrick want to hold him close, so he did. “In a year Rose Apothecary could be anything. It could be our labels on Gel Time products! It feels like they’re throwing a lot of money at us to keep us from asking questions.”

Patrick had been feeling the same way, actually. He told David as much while he held him, rubbing soothing circles into his back. So they pushed back on the offer until they pushed the buyer away for good. Having more or less decided they would move to New York after the wedding, they looked into other sales opportunities as well as what it would take to move the business entirely. Before long, they were weighing four or five different options at the same time.

In actuality, David was weighing them. Patrick didn’t really like any of them as much as he liked the idea of staying put, growing the business in Schitt’s Creek or Elm Valley, and growing the life they were starting together at the same time. But he meant what he told David, that he would go with him if he wanted to go, so he tried to be as helpful as he could. It was the first time he really understood why Tim was willing to move to Toronto, how he was willing to be a little less happy by day to have the person who means everything near him at night. Patrick feels lucky, now that he sees it from the other side, to have been loved like that.

The winter Open Mic Night was their busiest yet, buoyed by rumors that it might be the last one.

Patrick took the stage as usual and made small talk while he checked the tuning on his guitar and then looked out at the faces smiling back at him, crowded around the little store he built with his best friend. He was already emotional and he hadn’t even started singing.

“Thank you so much for coming to uh, what I’m sad to say will probably be the last of our Open Mic Nights here at the Rose Apothecary,” he said. “David and I are so excited you could all come.”

David’s smile was bittersweet as he leaned against the end of the counter near the cash. He still made a show of disliking this event, but it was just a show now. They had enough staff that he wouldn’t even have to be there if he didn’t want to be.

“You know. Way back, when I was developing feelings for this guy I had just gotten into business with, I had this idea for a song I was going to rearrange. I thought maybe if I ever got the chance to let him know how I felt, that I might sing this for him,” Patrick said with a shy smile as he moved the capo on the guitar up two frets and then moved it back, just to release some of his nerves. “Anyway, I think it still holds up. So. I would like to dedicate this song to a very special someone in my life. David Rose.”

A few people made little “aw” noises or turned around to see David’s horrified-delighted face. Patrick smiled at him too and started to play.

Patrick had had some version of that song running through his head for more than a decade. And he loved someone else deeply in between the first time he sat down with those words and the night when he finally performed them. So, when he sang to David that he’s the best, that he could think of no better place than in his arms, it was simply the truth.

By the time he finished, David’s face was full of all the love and the history and the choices they had made over the years. He pointed his head toward the back before disappearing behind the curtain and Patrick followed while a small group of Jazzagals performed selections from Coldplay.

“You okay?” Patrick asked, nervous.

“Yeah,” David replied, and then folded him into his arms, kissing his temple and his cheek and his hair as he held him. “So this is going well, huh?” David asked. 

Patrick laughed into his neck and squeezed him tighter. “Seems like it.”

“That was scary and embarrassing and I loved it.” David kissed him again, his breath warm on his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Patrick wanted to stay back there but the Jazzagals were singing “Clocks” which meant it was almost time to introduce the next act.

After their guests left, David fucked him up against the wall in the back room, pants around his knees and arms under Patrick’s legs, neither of them able to muster the patience to clean up and walk home first. David was sore later that night—they both were—and Patrick rubbed the small of his back until David drifted off to sleep, then he kissed his favorite spot right behind David’s jaw and drifted off himself, not bothering to detangle from David first. 

When Patrick woke up, David was sitting in the chair by the bed, drawing in his sketchbook. 

“Hey,” Patrick said, rolling over and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

“What if we stay here. Build the business here?” David asked. He turned his sketchbook around so Patrick could see the hastily-sketched floor plan while he talked. “We could expand the store into the building where the storeroom is. Remodel the upstairs too as an event space. Or a gallery? Maybe put an addition out back with more storage and actual space for processing online orders. And a catering kitchen. Or one of those kitchens where they host demonstrations and classes.”

Patrick is both fully awake now and possibly still dreaming. “Is that what you want?”

“You chose to stay here once because you love it here,” he said, setting the sketchbook aside.

“I do. But I really just want to be where you want to be.”

“You keep saying that,” David said. “Which is why I need you to believe me when I say that the only place I want to be is a place you love. And I love it too, incidentally. I love my life here with you.”

“David,” Patrick said. He uses David’s name whenever he doesn’t know what else to say, when he just needs to encompass the wholeness of his love.

“Patrick. You chose me once. Will you let me choose this for you?”

“We would need funding. Grants. Loans too possibly.”

“I’m not worried about that,” David said, lowering himself over Patrick and kissing him and kissing him.

“You’re not?” Patrick asked between kisses.

“I’m not. You’re gonna get the money.”

Patrick laughed into the next kiss and held David’s face so he couldn't escape until Patrick was done showing him how happy they would be with David’s choice. And really, they chose it together. So now they’re in the midst of a different upheaval.

“They’re amazing right?” David’s question draws Patrick back to the present. He’s looking up at the cherry blossoms as they walk under the branches along the pond, his perfect mouth slightly ajar in wonder.

“Yeah,” Patrick nods. “Here take a picture with me. This has to be better than the ones we got from Ray.”

“If you would have agreed to the spray tan I recommended—”

“Our contrasting skin tones is item number twenty-six out of the list of things wrong with those photos and you know it.” Patrick holds the phone out and takes a picture, catching David’s face winding up for a retort. David makes an undignified sound in protest and grabs the phone to erase it immediately. Patrick will have to remember to resurrect it from the Recently Deleted folder later.

“I do love the keychains,” David jokes as he angles them both a little differently and takes another one, catching them both smiling at the memory of the ridiculous “signing bonus” Ray offered as part of the wedding photography package. “I think the volcanic background really conveys the fire of our love.”

“Mmm,” Patrick agrees, and then kisses his cheek. David captures that too, love written into the smile lines that are becoming ever more permanent on their faces, with the cherry blossoms rioting in the background.

* * *

They do manage to finish the last of the packing in time for Ronnie to do a few repairs that need to happen before they can get married in the store. Deciding on where to hold the wedding was easy. Once they decided to clear it out and move their merchandise to a temporary location during construction, it just made sense to use the empty space. They’ve been partners for longer than they’ve been friends or boyfriends or fiancés. The store is the first place they made a commitment to each other, the place where they learned how much they wanted to keep all the promises they made. So it makes sense to make this next commitment here in the same space. 

When Ronnie finishes the repairs, David takes over. Patrick stops by to help on his way to and from lunch from their temporary storefront. When it comes to a lot of the wedding decisions, Patrick is happy if David is happy. David will make it beautiful. But it doesn’t stop him from involving himself as much as possible; he wants a front row seat for all the happiness.

The wedding itself is a bit of a blur. They say their vows. They swipe away tears as they exchange rings. And they become partners for life in the same room where they became partners in business. 

They eat some food. Patrick thinks they ate anyway; David would have made sure they ate. It’s kind of overwhelming to stand under the twinkling lights, surrounded by flowers and friends and family and memories of so many tiny moments he and David shared that finally led to this one. 

Stevie gives a speech that has them both crying, which is annoying because half of it is untrue and the other half is filled with truths that are only just becoming apparent to the grooms.

There’s a torte of course. And mall pretzels. And then they share their first dance to Rachael Yamagata’s version of “I Wish You Love.” It’s a song about letting someone go and wishing the best for them. They chose it together even though this occasion is very much about holding on. They wouldn’t be here without a lot of letting go.

Patrick is still dancing with David an hour later when Alexis dances by with Twyla. 

“David, I thought we talked about not playing songs by my exes at the wedding,” Alexis says, pointing generally around the room where Harry Styles’s “To Be So Lonely” is pumping out of the speakers. “And anyway this is, like, a breakup song.”

“I’m aware,” David says, winking at Patrick.

“Actually I think they’re all breakup songs,” Twyla says, like it’s just occurred to her.

“You soundtracked your entire _wedding_ with breakup songs?” Alexis asks. David catches Patrick’s eye and the laughter bubbles between them as he leans in and kisses his husband like he can’t help himself.

“We’ve been working on this playlist for years,” David says.

“Yeah, and we figured since we won’t be needing it much anymore, might as well give it the sendoff it deserves,” Patrick says by way of explanation. In truth, they both plan to listen to the playlist as much as they did before, which is at least during every road trip and once every couple of weeks in between, determined to pack plenty of new memories in on top of it. 

“Honestly this whole situation has me slightly worried for you,” Alexis says, pointing in a floppy, circular motion. “But . . . I support you.”

She boops them both on the nose, which makes Patrick feel as much a part of the Rose family as anything ever has. David lets go of Patrick long enough to hug her—he’s been hugging a lot tonight—and then he returns to Patrick’s arms where he stays for the rest of the night.

They close on their house at the end of the month, so they spend the night above the Elm Valley store. It’s nice ending the night at the other store, which they find themselves calling “our store” more and more, even if they don’t mean it in quite the same way. 

David stops at the top of the back stair and turns his back to Patrick. “Climb on,” he says.

“Climb on what?”

“On my back. I’m going to carry you over the threshold.”

“David,” Patrick almost giggles because they’re both giddy with love and champagne and promises. 

David turns around and kisses him and growls. “I know you know I can carry you, so climb on. Now.”

Patrick does as he’s told; it only takes two attempts to climb on his back successfully. Patrick wraps his arms around his shoulders and grazes his teeth along David’s neck as he carries him into their apartment. 

David carries him all the way to the bedroom, lowering him onto the bed and scrambling on top of him. The emotions of the day spill out of each press of his lips and grab of his hands. They unbutton and unzip and unfurl, fingers practiced and quick. Once their clothes have been draped carefully over the chair in the corner, David stands at the foot of the bed and grins at him. 

“You know what you reminded me of today?” David asks. His hands start at Patrick’s ankles and work their way up, slow and steady, fingers spread wide and firing up every one of Patrick’s nerves along the way.

“What?” Patrick croaks.

“The way you were when we had the soft launch of the first store. Glowing and already so happy to be a part of it. And now you know better, and you still want to be a part of it.”

“I do,” Patrick says. He says it by accident but it makes them both smile; the power of that particular promise is still very raw.

“I do, too,” David echoes. He drops his full weight on Patrick, which he knows is one of Patrick’s favorite things, and kisses him until Patrick feels drunk on it. David kisses him until the night is closer to dawn than dusk, until Patrick chases every one of his kisses, trying to find some way to convey with his body what it means to him, to be part of this. To be joined.

They have more than ten years of learning each other now, and almost a year of learning each other this way. And even though Patrick didn’t know, before his birthday, that he could press his thumb into the front of David’s hip and have him whining and pushing, cock heavy and hard against Patrick’s stomach, he knows how to read the honesty in David’s face when he does it. He knows how to interpret the glint in his eye and the boldness of his smile whenever he finds something new that David really likes. 

So Patrick knows nothing makes David writhe like the slow sweep of his tongue around the head of his cock. He knows David likes Patrick’s hands on his face, that he loves a gentle—and sometimes less-than-gentle—tug in his hair. Knows that David likes teeth on the inside of his thigh, that no matter where he’s being touched, he enjoys just a little bit of sharpness to soften the edge of Patrick’s tenderness.

David knows that Patrick loves David’s fingers in his ass, that he likes to be edged and pushed and told to wait just a little longer, honey. He knows that Patrick likes to be touched with palms broad and fingers spread, that he craves the softness of David’s hands against his private skin. David knows the heat of his breath on the thin skin behind Patrick's ear makes him wild. David knows Patrick loves it when David talks to him while he fucks him. That he loves it most when David is a little bit pushy because he wants to hear it when David’s demands turn breathy and disjointed as Patrick does what he requests with ruthless precision. 

They both know that they prefer to clean up quickly and then linger in slow kisses, to be as wrapped up in each other after sex as they were during it. David knows Patrick likes to fit their bodies together just so and Patrick knows David likes to murmur his anxieties against Patrick’s skin so he can sleep without them knocking elbows in his dreams.

So they spend their first night as husbands showing each other how deeply they are known.

* * *

Patrick already knows that no relationship, much less his relationship with David, is ever in stasis. It’s a growing, blooming thing that looks different in each season, that feels different too. He’s not prepared for what it feels like to be his husband, though. Not for the bold, beautiful, bottomlessness of it. Not for the gentle, joyful thrill of it, either. 

They decided early on that they would plan for a honeymoon next spring instead of going right away. However much his rivalry with Ronnie is exaggerated for their mutual enjoyment, Patrick doesn’t trust her with the construction on the store unattended for more than a week. So in the meantime they sneak away when they can in the midst of moving to the new house and checking on the store and keeping the business alive from the temporary space. 

Patrick isn’t sure what to expect for his forty-first birthday, but it starts the way a lot of Saturdays start, with a blowjob and breakfast. David takes his time with both, leaving Patrick feeling liquid and warm when he goes to brush his teeth and cook up blueberry ricotta pancakes. 

When he returns, he crawls into bed with Patrick and kisses his bare shoulder, whispering, “Do you mind if we just stay in today?” Patrick thinks that sounds perfect, so that’s what they do. 

They fuck and nap and watch whatevever looks good and laugh at it because it’s not that good. Then they laugh at each other because they can’t stop watching it, and then eat and fuck some more. David rides him, long legs folded against Patrick’s hips, fingers intertwined, and Patrick can’t take his eyes off him, all gorgeous and rumpled, silver in his hair and gold on his fingers and _his_. David grinds until Patrick is grabbing at him, propping himself up to pull David into a kiss, scrabbling at his hips in hopes he can hang on just a little longer. Just a _little_ longer. 

“Come on, honey. Come on.” David bends over him, his fingers scraping across Patrick’s nipples, and Patrick comes hard with a gasp. He reaches for his hand again, needing to be connected as David closes his eyes against the heat of Patrick pouring into him.

Patrick isn’t sure how much time passes. He doesn’t think he can move. He’s not sure how long they lie there panting and kissing whatever patch of skin is accessible with minimal effort. 

He must doze off eventually; he's annoyed when he wakes up with a craving for poorly-thawed food. It’s brighter than it was earlier, an indication the sun is now low enough in the sky to send its warm yellow light through their west-facing bedroom windows. 

“Is it weird that I kind of miss the café?” Patrick asks David, who is drawing constellations between the freckles on Patrick's stomach. “Maybe it’s like a Pavlovian response now.”

“I sort of had my heart set on pizza, but I guess since it's your birthday . . . We can go if that's what you want,” David says with an easy shrug.

“So sweet," Patrick says sarcastically, kissing the bridge of his nose, and David makes a show of being embarrassed by his own generosity.

They park behind the store so they can peek in and check on the progress. It’s coming along. In another six months they should be ready for the grand reopening. 

“I just don't think we can call it a soft launch if we're technically still in business," Patrick insists as they lock up. 

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” David says, nibbling at the nape of his neck when they walk across the street toward the café, “but I’m not saying you’re right. Because you’re kind of unbearable when I tell you you’re right about something.” 

Patrick is still pushing it half-heartedly when he opens the door between the small vestibule and the café. 

The roar of “Surprise!” makes him jump, his left foot landing on one of David's high-top sneakers. The lights David uses every year are strung, and soft music plays. His family and friends are gathered in a tight cluster, beaming at him. 

David looks smug and delighted at Patrick’s shock—no acting required—and whispers in Patrick’s ear. “This year I wanted to be the one to distract you. Surprise, honey.” Patrick kisses him and then hugs his parents and says hello to the Roses and spends the rest of the night surrounded in the glow of the surprise. 

Patrick thanks Stevie and Alexis and Twyla for getting everything set up while David kept him busy. “It’s basically a formula at this point,” David says, because he can’t give away even partial credit for pulling this off. He’s still David Rose.

Patrick sits down with David in a booth to talk to Clint and Marcy for a while. They listen to his dad complain about his back and his knees and his mom remind him that continuing to play baseball isn’t helping any of that. Patrick listens to them both argue over the details to every story and catches his dad looking at his mom with a kind of private fondness as she tells Patrick about OWLS, the Older, Wiser, Livelier Seniors group she started with some friends to stay active during retirement. When she’s done, Clint takes Marcy’s hand and rubs his thumb across her knuckles and kisses her temple right on the hairline that she’s letting go gray. She smiles at him and leans in like she’s going to kiss him for real, and then frowns and wipes a little bit of frosting from the corner of his mouth with a tsk. She licks her finger and winks at David whose hand closes warm on Patrick’s thigh. 

Patrick knows things don’t always work out the way you want them to. His parents are far from perfect. But he hopes he and David are doing this someday, sitting here in the café, or somewhere else that makes them happy, griping at each other during stories they’ve heard a thousand times and disagreeing with details they saw with their own eyes just to be disagreeable and then a breath, a second later, kissing each other’s gray hairs and squeezing wrinkled hands, smiles triggering lines that have worked permanently into their faces from repetitive use.

Every month that goes by now, Patrick feels his heart fill and grow, increasing its capacity. He wonders if this is what it will always be like. If being loved by someone the way he’s loved by David will mean it just keeps growing like this. He hopes so. He likes who he is when he’s with David. He always has.

Mrs. Rose pulls David away to discuss “a minor and discomposing logistical quandary” and blows a kiss at the Brewers, a kind of non-apologetic apology. “I’m impressed you all managed to arrange this whole thing without me figuring it out,” Patrick says. 

“Oh, well. David figured he had this one year when you might not be expecting it,” his mom says. Patrick smiles and nods.

“You know, I’ve known that man for a decade now and tonight is the first night where I sort of think I understand his clothes,” his dad says. Patrick laughs and looks over at David, who is wearing a graphic black and white sweatshirt that says, _I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF LOVE._

“It’s Givenchy,” Patrick says, and his dad sort of shrugs like that doesn’t really fill in the gaps in his understanding. 

“Well I’m glad we could be here with you again,” his mom says, taking his hand in hers. “Happy birthday, my sweet boy.”

“Me too,” Patrick says softly. “And thank you."

Patrick looks for David and finds him across the room. They exchange soft, pleased smiles. He’s managed to surprise Patrick two years in a row now, a new record. Patrick decides to savor it. The surprise birthday party might not work next year. It might never work again. It doesn’t matter. He's sure that one way or another, they’ll continue to surprise each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to Pants and Likerealpeopledo for beta-ing, often at the last minute, lately in the midst of an incredibly stressful time, and while they worked on their own stories. I feel very lucky to have you both as friends and betas.
> 
> I had the absolute best time writing this. Thanks for reading it. 
> 
> BREWER-ROSE WEDDING PLAYLIST  
>  _You can assume the songs on the CD track list in Chapter 5 end notes and the playlist in the Chapter 9 end notes were also included._  
>  I Wish You Love (Rachael Yamagata)  
> Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (Soft Cell)  
> Titanium (David Guetta feat. Sia)  
> Breakin’ Up is Hard to Do (Neil Sedaka)  
> Forget/Fuck You (Cee Lo Green)  
> Fuck Apologies (JoJo feat. Wiz Khalifa)  
> I Can’t Make You Love Me (Bonnie Rait)  
> To Be So Lonely (Harry Styles)  
> Harden My Heart (Quarterflash)  
> Let It Go (James Bay)  
> Pain in My Heart (Otis Redding)  
> Ex’s & Oh’s (Elle King)  
> Breakeven (The Script)  
> Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) (Beyonce)  
> Take It All Back 2.0 (Judah & the Lion)  
> Cry Me A River (Justin Timberlake)


End file.
